THE  SOVEREIGNTY 
OF   THE    STATES 


THE  SOVEREIGNTY 
OF    THE    STATES 


AN  ORATION 

ADDRESS   TO   THE   SURVIVORS   OF    THE   EIGHTH 

VIRGINIA   REGIMENT,    WHILE   THEY    WERE 

GATHERED     ABOUT    THE    GRAVES    OF 

THEIR  FALLEN  COMRADES,  ON  THE 

BATTLE-GROUND  OF  MANASSAS,    , 

JULY  21,  1910  UNJ'1 


BY 

WALTER     NEALE 


NEW  YORK  AND  WASHINGTON 

THE  NEALE  PUBLISHING  COMPANY 

1910 


COPYRIGHT,  1910,  BY 
WALTER  NEALE 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  THE  AMERICAN  KINGDOMS  1 

(1578-1783) 

II.  THE  AMERICAN  EEPUBLICS  73 

(1783-1865) 

III.  THE  AMERICAN  ABSOLUTE  MONARCHY        116 
(1865-1910) 


M1766& 


PREFACE 

IN  these  days  orators  refer  to  their  "ad- 
dresses," or  they  refer  to  their  "speeches." 
Poets  in  these  days  speak  of  their  "verses," 
or  they  speak  of  their  "  rhymes."  Thus  ora- 
tors and  poets  intend  to  be  modest;  thus  they 
try  to  escape  ridicule.  The  affairs  of  the 
world  may  not  be  conducted  by  a  medium 
more  effective  than  oratory,  by  which  nations 
have  been  built,  and  by  which  right  has  ever 
been  defended;  man  may  not  find  expression 
by  a  medium  nobler  than  poetry,  which  has 
ever  been  the  greatest  force  in  literature. 
Yet  unthinking  men  in  these  days  so  ridicule 
orators  and  poets  that  the  existence  of  ora- 
tory and  poetry  is  threatened.  The  man  who 
refers  to  his  oration  as  an  oration  is  no  more 
immodest  than  the  man  who  refers1  to  his 
novel  as  a  novel;  the  man  who  describes  his 
poetry  as  poetry  is  no  more  immodest  than 
the  man  who  describes  his  song  as  music. 
In  doing  so  neither  asserts  that  his  work 
equals  the  best  of  the  masters  of  his  art. 


Preface 


The  fact  that  there  are  incompetent  workers 
in  oratory  and  in  poetry,  as  in  all  the  affairs 
of  men,  does  not  supply  proper  motive  for  the 
debasement  of  two  noble  arts. 

This  account  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  states 
is  an  oration.    So  it  is  called. 

WALTEE  NEALE. 


THE  SOVEREIGNTY   OF   THE 
STATES 


THE   AMERICAN   KINGDOMS 
FROM  1578  TO  1783 

Survivors  of  the  Eighth  Virginia  Regiment, 
Prince  William  County  Chapter  of  the 
United  Daughters  of  the  Confederacy,  and 
all  others  that  are  here  gathered  on  the 
battle-ground  of  Manassas  to  honour  those 
who  fought  to  preserve  the  rights  of  the 
American  nations: 

SOLDIERS  of  the  Eighth  Virginia  Regiment, 
the  war  is  not  over,  not  yet  may  you  unbuckle 
your  armour:  take  up  the  arms  that  you  laid 
down  at  Appomattox,  then  on  to  the  front,  for 
the  hardest  of  the  fighting  is  yet  to  be  done. 

In  1861  the  American  nations  submitted 
one  question  only  to  the  arbitrament  of  arms. 
That  question  was  answered  in  1865,  on  the 


2  The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

ninth  day  of  April,  the  saddest  day  known 
to  Virginians,  when  the  court  of  last  resort 
decided  that  no  nation  a  party  to  the  treaty 
of  1788  and  its  amendments  should  be  per- 
mitted to  withdraw  from  that  compact;  but 
that  same  court,  the  highest  of  tribunals,  then 
decided  that  the  rights  of  no  nation  should 
be  otherwise  affected.  In  construing  the 
terms  of  the  agreement  in  one  respect  only 
did  opinions  differ. 

As  the  victors  fought  for  the  perpetuation 
of  the  treaty, — in  all  its  provisions,  as  in- 
terpreted by  them, — the  decision  met  with 
their  entire  approval.  The  defeated  countries 
lost  but  one  of  their  rights,  while  all  their 
other  rights  were  to  be  theirs  for  ever.  Each 
fought  that  her  sovereignty  might  be  hers 
for  ever,  and  each  was  assured  that  never 
should  her  sovereignty  be  placed  in  jeopardy. 
Thus  the  defeated  countries  were  victorious 
in  defeat. 

But,  Soldiers  of  the  Eighth  Virginia  Eegi- 
ment,  the  decision  of  the  court  of  last  resort 
has  been  disregarded  by  the  victors.  They 
have  violated  the  terms  of  surrender  by 
which  you  were  induced  to  lay  down  your 
arms,  for  one  by  one  the  rights  of  the  de- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States  3 

feated  nations  have  been  taken  from  them. 
The  terms  of  surrender  signed,  sealed,  and 
delivered,  the  defeated  peoples  hoped  that 
they  would  be  permitted  to  exercise  at  least 
a  few  of  the  powers  of  sovereignty. 

A  vain  hope!  The  War  of  Keconstruction, 
the  most  horrible  of  all  modern  wars,  was 
forced  upon  them  by  their  victors.  They  were 
to  pay  billions  as  indemnity  under  an  in- 
famous pension  law;  they  were  to  pay  bil- 
lions as  an  indemnity  under  an  iniquitous 
tariff.  They  were  to  see  a  vast  republic 
made  of  the  American  nations;  they  were  to 
see  that  republic  enter  upon  Vars  of  conquest 
in  distant  lands.  They  were  to  see  Cleveland 
tear  down  the  flag  that  had  been  raised  in 
dishonour;  they  were  to  see  McKinley  as- 
sassinate the  treaty  that  he  had  fought  to  per- 
petuate. Yes,  they  were  to  see  McKinley  as- 
sassinate the  treaty  that  he  had  fought  to  per- 
petuate, for  they  were  to  see  him  replace 
the  flag  that  Cleveland  had  torn  down,  his 
face  livid  with  shame  the  while.  They  were  to 
see  shrieking  mobs,  drunk  with  imperial 
power, — tasted  for  the  first  time, — gather 
about  the  flag  that  dishonoured  the  heavens, 
while  above  the  uproar  they  were  to  hear  the 


4  The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

more  coherent  among  the  rabble  shout :  "  Let 
the  flag  stay  put!  Get  out,  you  little  Amer- 
icans! the  flag  once  planted  shall  wave  for 
ever ! "  They  were  to  hear  a  trumpet  sound- 
ing throughout  the  world:  "Awake,  nations 
of  the  earth,  the  peoples  of  sovereign  powers 
have  become  the  American  people!"  They 
were  to  see  the  vast  American  republic  evolve 
into  a  powerful  empire,  with  a  president  for 
king;  they  were  to  see  that  empire  become  a 
despotic  monarchy.  They  were  to  see  the 
highest  court  of  the  communities  that  once 
were  nations  become  the  lowest  court  of  the 
new  monarchy;  they  were  to  see  the  members 
of  the  highest  court  of  the  new  monarchy 
become  the  minions  of  the  despot.  They 
were  to  see  American  legislators  the  despot's 
lackeys.  They  were  to  see  the  communities 
that  had  been  sovereignties  with  no  right 
save  the  rights  that  the  despot  was  pleased 
to  grant  them  from  time  to  time.  They  were 
to  see  the  American  despot  become  more 
powerful  than  the  Kussian  czar. 

The  ruler  that  is  now  on  the  American 
throne — the  second  that  Ohio  has  supplied 
to  the  American  monarchy  within  a  single 
decade — intends  to  tax  directly  the  persons 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States  5 

that  live  in  the  communities  that  once  were 
nations.  More  than  half  the  members  of  the 
despot's  highest  court  rebel,  refusing  to  per- 
mit him  directly  to  tax  his  subjects;  so  the 
despot  intends  to  pacify  the  rebels  by  going 
through  the  form  of  adding  a  section  to  the 
compact  of  confederation  that!  is  still  sup- 
posed to  bind  the  communities  that  were  once 
sovereignties.  The  despot  is  to  be  permitted 
directly  to  tax  the  income  of  his  people. 

If  there  be  a  single  defect  in  this  vast  mon- 
archy, it  is  the  veneration  in  which  many  of 
the  people  still  hold  the  old  treaty  of  1788 
and  its  amendments.  Once  let  that  document 
give  the  American  despot  the  moral  right  to 
tax  his  subjects,  and  Anglo-Saxon  civilisa- 
tion in  America  shall  be  no  more.  Almighty 
God,  forbid! 

Virginians,  since  the  nations  that!  you 
fought  have  violated  the  agreement  under 
which  you  laid  down  your  arms,  I  implore 
you, — I  command  you, — take  up  your  arms, 
and  let  every  man  of  this  old  commonwealth 
be  gathered  to  his  fathers  rather  than  die  a 
slave. 

Let  us  briefly  review  the  lives  of  the  Amer- 


6  The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

lean  nations  that  became  parties  to  the  treaty 
of  1788  and  its  amendments.  The  fault  will 
be  mine  if  I  do  not  show  that  each  was  a 
sovereignty  from  1578,  when  Elizabeth  is- 
sued a  patent  to  Gilbert,  until  1865,  when 
Eleven  failed  to  maintain  their  rights.  As 
the  powers  of  the  American  nations  did  not 
differ  essentially  between  1578  and  1865,  the 
greater  part  of  our  review  will  be  devoted  to 
Virginia,  that  time  may  be  saved. 

GENESIS  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONS 

During  the  reign  of  Edward  III  England 
was  devastated  by  the  worst  disease  known 
to  man.  Large  tracts  of  her  territory  were 
left  uninhabited,  and  not  until  the  greater 
part  of  her  people  were  in  their  graves — 
or  their  bones  were  bleaching  on  her  high- 
ways— had  the  disease  run  its  course.  But 
the  black  death  was  not  an  unmixed  evil. 
Never  able  to  supply  food  to  a  large  popula- 
tion, England  could  not  at  that  time  feed  her 
five  million  inhabitants.  A  large  part  of  her 
people  faced  starvation  when  death  came  to 
them  in  a  more  hideous  guise. 

The  loss  in  population  having  been  regained 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States  7 

during  Elizabeth's  reign,  once  more  famine 
threatened  the  people,  who  could  find  no  re- 
lief within  the  boundaries  of  the  realm.  For 
want  of  work  tens  of  thousands  were  idle. 
Occupation  had  to  be  found  for  the  unem- 
ployed, or  a  dynasty  would  fall;  nor  should 
England  become  a  power  of  first  rank  until 
she  should  find  an  abundance  of  food.  Al- 
ready her  wise  men  were  saying  that  she 
should  soon  be  seized  by  the  Spaniards.  With- 
out bread  the  English  people  could  not  live. 
So  the  petition  of  the  brave  adventurer, 
Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert,  that  a  patent  be  is- 
sued to  him  for  land  beyond  the  seas,  was 
heard  by  sympathetic  ears.  As  Elizabeth 
saw,  here  was  an  opportunity  to  establish  a 
nation  of  her  own  blood  and  bone,  which 
would  take  from  England  her  surplus  popu- 
lation, supply  her  with  food,  and  constitute 
a  market  for  her  merchandise.  Moreover,  al- 
ready England  saw  that  her  sovereignty  was 
in  the  keeping  of  her  navy,  and  she  also  saw 
that  her  navy  would  be  ineffective  without 
stations  in  various  parts  of  the  world.  Thus 
her  existence  was  dependent  upon  her  com- 
merce, her  commerce  was  dependent  upon  her 
navy,  and  her  navy  was  dependent  upon 


8  The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

friendly  distant  lands.  In  1578  Sir  Hum- 
phrey Gilbert,  his  patent  in  his  pocket,  sailed 
from  England,  intending  to  found  a  nation 
in  the  American  wilds. 

Elizabeth  and  her  advisers  knew  that  Eng- 
land could  govern  no  distant  people.  At  best 
she  could  bind  them  to  her  by  the  golden 
chains  of  love ;  nor  have  any  chains  other  than 
love  ever  bound  the  English  peoples  to  one 
another  and  to  the  mother  country.  No 
other  chains  have  ever  bound  two  peoples — 
or  more — of  an  ancestor  common  to  them, 
when  separated  by  water,  nor  ever  will. 
Those  golden  chains  have  ever  been  the 
strength  of  England.  To-day  the  great  sys- 
tem of  nations  that  comprise  all  the  peo- 
ples that  speak  the  English  language  are 
bound  by  the  same  chains.  There  are  nations 
now  that  would  do  well  to  imitate  the  wis- 
dom of  England  as  expressed  by  her  more 
than  three  hundred  years  ago,  when  she 
granted  to  her  people  the  right  to  found  na- 
tions in  the  American  forests. 

One  of  Humphrey  Gilbert's  seven  ships  was 
commanded  by  his  half-brother,  Walter  Kal- 
eigh,  then  a  youth  of  twenty-six.  The  fleet 
fought  the  Spaniards  on  the  high  seas,  and 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States  9 

probably  suffered  severely,  for  the  expedition 
went  back  to  England.  In  1583  the  daunt- 
less Gilbert  again  set  sail,  and  again  his  at- 
tempt to  reach  America  failed,  this  time  ow- 
ing to  a  violent  storm,  which  sent  the  com- 
mander to  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  The  gal- 
lant Ealeigh,  who  had  been  too  much  engaged 
in  paying  court  to  his  beautiful  sovereign  to 
accompany  the  second  expedition,  proved  to 
be  his  half-brother's  worthy  successor.  In 
1584  the  patent  that  had  been  granted  to  Gil- 
bert was  renewed  in  the  younger  man's  name. 
However,  a  permanent  settlement  was  not  es- 
tablished until  May  13,  1607,  when  the  tra- 
vail that  began  when  Elizabeth  handed  Gil- 
bert's patent  to  him  in  1587  was  ended — the 
nation  Virginia  was  born. 

FROM  1578  TO  1609 

Under  a  provision  of  Gilbert's  patent,  re- 
newed by  Elizabeth  in  1584,  Raleigh  acquired 
the  right  to  "  hold  by  homage  remote  heathen 
and  barbarous  lands,  not  actually  possessed 
by  any  Christian  prince,  nor  inhabited  by 
Christian  people,  which  he  might  discover 
within  the  next  six  years."  The  patent  also 


10          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

provided  that  the  people  of  each  of  the  new 
lands  "should  have  all  the  privileges  of  free 
denizens  and  persons  native  of  England,  in 
such  ample  manner  as  if  they  were  born  and 
personally  resident  in  our  said  realm  of  Eng- 
land," and  still  further  the  patent  provided 
that  the  peoples  should  have  the  right  to 
govern  themselves  so  long  as  their  laws  should 
"conform  as  nearly  as  conveniently  may  be 
with  those  of  England,  and  do  not  oppugn 
the  Christian  faith,  or  anyway  withdraw  the 
people  of  those  lands  from  our  allegiance." 
Says  John  Piske,  a  more  unequivocal  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  rights  of  self-govern- 
ment would  be  hard  to  find.1 

While  the  patent  provided  that  the  head  of 
the  British  nation  also  should  be  the  head  of 
each  of  the  American  nations,  the  sovereignty 
of  none  was  affected  by  that  provision.  Two 
countries  or  more  may  acknowledge  a  king 
common  to  them  all,  yet  each  be  a  sovereign 
entity.  For  example,  if  China,  Germany, 
and  Eussia  each  was  to  call  an  American  to 
her  throne,  that  course  would  not  effect  the 
amalgamation  of  those  nations,  nor  would 

i  John  Fiske,  Old  Virginia  and  Her  Neighbours,  in  2 
vols.,  vol.  i,  p.  31. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          11 

they  become  thereby  colonies  of  the  American 
monarchy;  but  each  would  be  governed  by 
her  own  laws,  which  would  be  executed  by  a 
king  of  her  own  selection,  hence  she  would 
continue  to  be  a  nation.  While  the  civilised 
countries  of  the  world  owe  allegiance  to  Al- 
mighty God,  and  to  some  extent  are  governed 
by  His  laws,  the  sovereignty  of  none  is 
thereby  affected.  Although  the  head  of  Vir- 
ginia's government  was  to  live  in  London, 
nevertheless  she  was  to  be  her  sovereign  self, 
with  all  departments  of  her  government  ad- 
ministered by  persons  of  her  blood  and 
bone. 

A  nation  consists  of  persons  that  are  or- 
ganised under  one  civil  government.  Ordi- 
narily a  nation  is  the  sole  occupant  of  a  ter- 
ritory within  definite  bounds,  but  not  always, 
for  several  nations  may  inhabit  land  that  is 
common  to  them  all.  In  America,  for  exam- 
ple, the  Caucasian  nations  and  the  Indian 
nations  formerly  occupied  land  that  was 
common  to  them.  If  sovereignty  be  power 
to  exercise  supreme  authority,  no  nation  has 
ever  been  sovereign,  for  the  nations  of  the 
world,  constituting  one  great  human  family, 
compel  one  another  to  observe  laws  for  the 


12          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

common  good.  No  nation  even  has  had  a 
government  with  power  to  exercise  unre- 
strained authority  over  her  own  people. 

Unless  the  definition  of  "nation"  and  the 
definition  of  "  sovereignty  "  are  borne  in  mind 
constantly,  often  we  shall  be  confused  during 
the  course  of  this  oration. 

In  1603  James  I  ascended  the  English 
throne,  sent  the  noble  Raleigh  to  prison,  took 
his  patent  away  from  him,  then  put  it  into 
the  kingly  pocket. 

The  charter  under  which  Virginia  became 
a  nation,  issued  by  James  I,  divided  Eng- 
land's American  dominion  into  two  parts. 
The  territory  lying  between  the  thirty-fourth 
and  the  forty-first  parallels — that  is,  between 
the  present  capital  of  South  Carolina  and  the 
present  capital  of  New  Jersey — was  to  be  oc- 
cupied by  a  commercial  organisation,  while 
another  commercial  organisation  was  to  oc- 
cupy the  dominion  lying  between  the  thirty- 
eighth  and  the  forty-fifth  parallels — that  is, 
between  the  Potomac  river  and  the  St.  Law- 
rence river,  not  to  be  exact.  Thus  the  wily 
James  issued  patents  to  a  part  of  his  domin- 
ion to  more  than  one  political  body — for  the 
commercial  companies  really  were  political 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          13 

bodies.  In  time  this  territory  was  divided 
into  several  parts,  then  sold  by  the  king. 

So  far  as  the  sovereignty  of  each  of  the 
American  nations  was  concerned,  the  charter 
under  which  the  first  permanent  settlement 
was  established  did  not  differ  materially  from 
the  patent  that  Elizabeth  had  issued.  While 
a  royal  council  consisting  of  thirteen  persons, 
to  be  appointed  by  the  king,  was  to  advise 
them,  each  nation  was  to  govern  herself. 
They  were  each  to  be  governed  by  a  council, 
to  consist  of  thirteen  persons,  one  of  the  mem- 
bers to  be  president,  who  was  to  have  a  cast- 
ing vote,  and  who  was  to  be  elected  each  year 
by  the  council.  Among  the  duties  of  the 
council  was  to  fill  its  own  vacancies,  dismiss 
the  president  from  his  office  in  case  of  mis- 
conduct, and  to  deport  undesirable  foreigners. 

Each  of  the  American  nations  was  to  be  as 
sovereign  as  the  mother  from  whose  womb 
she  was  to  leap.  Fiske  says  that  the  au- 
thority of  the  councils  was  supreme,  although 
their  acts  were  liable  to  a  veto  from  the  king. 
As  we  shall  see,  the  king,  as  the  head  of  each 
American  government,  could  exercise  the 
powers  of  his  office  without  affecting  in  the 
least  the  sovereignty  of  the  American  peoples. 


14          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

Virginia  was  entirely  satisfied  with  her 
form  of  government  and  the  way  that  it  was 
administered.  She  proceeded  to  coin  money, 
punish  offenders,  raise  revenue  by  taxation, 
and  to  regulate  her  trade  with  foreign  na- 
tions. That  she  might  defend  her  people  she 
organised  an  army  of  her  own  citizens,  com- 
manded by  officers  of  her  own  selection,  and 
her  people  were  further  defended  by  a  navy 
of  her  own  construction,  manned  by  her  own 
citizens. 

A  nation  is  never  made  of  a  piece  of  parch- 
ment. Although  the  American  nations  were 
sovereign  when  their  lands  were  first  settled, 
the  sovereignty  of  each  had  to  be  maintained 
by  sweat  and  by  blood.  Within  forty  years 
from  the  time  that  James  I  ascended  the 
throne  the  American  nations  were  prepared 
to  defend  their  sovereignty  against  the  world. 
Time  and  again  each  had  fought  for  her  life, 
and  always  her  armies  had  been  victorious. 
By  sweat  and  by  blood  the  American  nations 
within  forty  years  from  the  time  they  were 
first  permanently  settled  had  earned  for  them- 
selves high  places  among  the  sovereignties  of 
the  world. 

During  the  early  years  of  the  seventeenth 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          15 

century  no  nation  could  have  waged  war  suc- 
cessfully three  thousand  miles  from  home. 
Suppose  that  a  power  beyond  the  seas,  brav- 
ing the  dangers  of  a  vast  unknown  continent 
inhabited  by  hostile  Indians,  defended  by  a 
government  with  a  trained  military  force,  had 
successfully  invaded  Virginia,  could  the  in- 
vader have  long  enjoyed  the  fruit  of  her  vic- 
tory? Not  so. 

As  a  nation  is  sovereign  so  long  as  she  ex- 
ercises the  powers  of  sovereignty,  one  may  not 
say  that  Virginia  was  not  sovereign  because 
she  might  have  been  taken  by  some  European 
state.  To  argue  to  the  contrary  would  be  to 
contend  that  no  nation  is  sovereign,  inas- 
much as  no  nation  exists  that  may  not  be 
overcome  by  some  adversary,  nor  has  any  na- 
tion ever  existed  that  might  not  have  fallen 
under  the  assault  of  the  combined  nations  of 
the  earth.  Switzerland  is  a  sovereign  state, 
although  she  might  be  held  in  Russia's  right 
hand.  Virginia  was  not  successfully  invaded, 
nor  was  her  national  existence  affected  for  a 
moment;  so  we  may  not  say  that  she  might 
have  lost  her  sovereignty  through  invasion. 


16          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

FROM  1609  TO  1624 

On  May  23,  1609,  a  new  charter  was 
granted  to  the  London  company.  In  annul- 
ling the  old  charter  James  I  declared  that, 
while  the  first  commercial  company  had  been 
deprived  of  its  privileges,  the  sovereignty  of 
Virginia  was  unimpaired,  and  he  further  de- 
clared that  the  new  charter  did  not  deprive 
Virginia  of  any  of  her  territory.  Similar 
declarations  were  made  by  Charles  I.  To  en- 
ter into  a  detailed  account  of  the  government 
under  the  new  charter  is  not  necessary  in  this 
oration,  so  I  merely  say  that  Virginia  con- 
tinued her  sovereign  existence,  fighting  out 
her  national  destiny  with  axe  and  hoe  and 
sword.  By  1612,  the  year  that  the  London 
company  obtained  its  third  charter,  Virginia 
had  taken  off  her  swaddling  clothes. 

Under  the  new  charter  the  government  ex- 
panded. The  House  of  Burgesses  assembled 
July  30,  1619,  obedient  to  the  writs  of  elec- 
tion that  Governor  Yeardley  had  issued. 
Eleven  election  districts  were  represented, 
each  by  two  delegates.  The  first  parliament 
to  assemble  in  America  thereafter  convened 
at  stated  intervals  until  1776,  a  year  after  the 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          17 

fight  at  Lexington.  So  early  as  1624  the  as- 
sembly declared  that  the  governor,  the  repre- 
sentative of  Virginia's  king,  the  king  of  her 
choice,  should  not  tax  the  people  against  the 
will  of  the  Burgesses,  the  representatives 
chosen  by  the  people  to  make  their  laws. 

Says  Major  Steele,  referring  to  the  Ameri- 
can kingdoms:  "About  the  only  real  bond 
that  tied  them  to  the  authority  of  England 
was  the  colonial  governors,  but  they  were  de- 
pendent upon  the  behest  of  the  colonial  legis- 
latures for  their  pay;  so  their  vetoes  were 
easily  bought  off.  Of  a  truth,  the  provincial 
legislatures  brought  the  governors  to  terms, 
by  refusing  to  vote  their  salaries."2 

Continuing,  Major  Steele  in  the  next  para- 
graph says :  "  There  were  customs  laws  and 
various  other  laws  for  taxing  the  colonists; 
but  all  of  them  were  ignored." 

In  1622  the  population  of  Virginia  was 
fully  4,000,  while  her  people  were  wealthy. 
By  that  time  several  of  the  mansions  for 
which  Virginia  is  famous  had  been  erected, 
and  the  homes  of  many  of  the  workmen  were 
so  substantial  that  a  few  of  them  are  still  to 

2  Matthew  Forney  Steele,  American  Campaigns,  2  vols., 
Washington,  War  Department,  Office  of  the  Chief  of  Staff, 
Document  No.  324,  vol.  i,  p.  21. 


18          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

be  found  in  a  state  of  excellent  preservation. 
All  the  people  enjoyed  an  abundance,  all  were 
happy,  all  worked  hard,  all  enjoyed  liberty 
in  full  measure — the  liberty  that  is  not 
license. 

FROM  1624  TO  1776 

The  downfall  of  the  London  company  was 
brought  about  by  James  I  in  1624.  Although 
the  assembly  that  had  been  elected  by  the 
people  and  the  governor  and  the  council  that 
had  been  appointed  by  the  throne  were  en- 
tirely satisfied  with  the  relations  existing  be- 
tween the  Virginian  government  and  the 
British  government,  and  frequently  had  given 
expression  to  that  satisfaction,  and  more 
than  once  had  said  that  the  company  ably 
represented  Virginia's  king,  nevertheless  his 
majesty  decided  to  withdraw  the  authority 
that  he  had  delegated  to  the  company,  and 
soon  wielded  his  kingly  power  over  all  the 
subjects  of  his  American  realm.  He  person- 
ally appointed  Virginia's  governor  and  the 
members  of  her  upper  house,  known  as  -a 
council;  then  warned  his  British  parliament 
and  his  British  privy  council  that  the  affairs 
of  his  American  kingdoms  were  no  part  of 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          19 

their  proper  concern,  that  he  did  not  n-eed 
their  assistance  in  exercising  his  duties  as 
king  of  his  realms  beyond  the  seas.  He 
broadly  hinted  that  the  commercial  body 
should  no  longer  exist. 

The  company  contended  that  James  had 
no  power  by  which  he  could  annul  the  char- 
ter, which  had  become  a  valuable  vested  right. 
The  argument  of  the  attorney-general  in  the 
quo  warrcmto  proceeding  that  was  brought 
before  the  Court  of  Kings  Bench  was  worthy 
of  his  profession.  The  charter,  he  said,  per- 
mitted the  company  to  carry  the  king's  sub- 
jects across  the  seas  to  Virginia;  therefore, 
if  the  company  should  convey  all  Englishmen 
to  America,  the  king  would  be  left  without 
subjects  in  his  British  kingdom.  The  court 
was  convinced;  the  charter  was  annulled. 

The  sovereignty  of  the  American  nation 
had  not  even  been  placed  in  jeopardy  by  the 
downfall  of  the  company,  and  "self-govern- 
ment in  Virginia,"  says  Fiske,  "went  on  to 
take  root  more  deeply  and  strongly  than  be- 
fore."3 

VIRIGINIA'S  GROWTH  NOW  RAPID 

The  growth  of  Virginia  was  rapid.    Courts 

s  Fiske,  vol.  i,  p.  222. 


20          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

that  held  sessions  monthly  were  established, 
and  soon  a  great  judiciary  system  was  per- 
fected; the  nation  was  divided  into  military 
districts,  with  every  able-bodied  man  a  trained 
soldier,  his  arms  always  within  his  reach; 
all  industries  necessary  to  Virginia's  exis- 
tence as  a  sovereignty  were  developed,  while 
a  single  agricultural  product,  tobacco,  alone 
was  sufficient  to  make  her  people  the  wealth- 
iest of  the  world;  her  ships,  which  also  con- 
stituted a  powerful  navy  able  to  protect  her 
commerce, — for  every  ship  was  heavily 
armed, — carried  her  products  to  all  parts  of 
the  world,  while  her  policy  of  free  trade, 
which  is  still  her  policy,  added  to  her  wealth 
as  well  as  to  her  honour.  Her  planters  be- 
came kings,  her  merchants  became  princes, 
and  her  labourers  became  barons.  Although 
a  banking  system  did  not  exist  in  Virginia 
until  1804,  her  fiscal  systems  were  as  nearly 
perfect  as  those  of  any  other  nation. 

A  table  that  shows  Virginia's  money  in 
present  American  values,  compiled  by  a  Vir- 
ginian writer,4  is  so  important  in  a  consider- 
ation of  the  sovereignty  of  the  states,  that  I 
now  repeat  it: 

*J.  W.  Eggleston,  Tuckahoe,  p.  ix. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          21 

Fourpence-half-penny    or    "fo'-pence-a'-penny"  $  .06i 

Ninepence     12£ 

Shilling    16§ 

Eighteenpence     25 

Two-an'   threp-pence    (threepence)     37£ 

Three-an'-ninepence    62£ 

Four-an'-sixpence       75 

Seven-an'-sixpence    1.25 

Nine    shillings    1.50 

While  there  was  no  Virginian  pound,  the 
term  nevertheless  was  often  used.  Mr.  Eg- 
gleston  errs  when  he  says  that  the  only  in- 
stance in  which  reference  was  made  to  the 
pound  was  in  1850,  when  the  code  of  Virginia 
provided  that  the  governor's  salary  be  1,000 
pounds,  the  governor  drawing  in  satisfaction 
of  his  salary  3,333  American  dollars  and  33 
American  cents.  The  term  pound  was  used 
oftener  than  the  term  dollar  until  long  after 
Virginia  ceased  to  be  a  kingdom,  while  often 
at  this  day  one  may  hear  a  Virginian  say, 
"  Not  a  pound  will  I  give  you  for  that  beast." 

Nor  werei  the  fine  arts  neglected,  nor 
science.  So  early  as  1621  provision  was 
made  for  a  great  public  free  school  sys- 
tem,— the  foundation  of  the  system  that 
Jefferson  perfected, — and  about  the  same 
time  various  subscriptions  were  made  to 
a  fund  that  was  to  be  used  in  establish- 


22          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

ing  a  great  national  university.  The  College 
of  William  and  Mary,  erected  in  1692,  the 
result  of  the  movement  that  began  in  1621, 
may  be  ranked  among  the  great  educational 
institutions  of  the  world.  Again  Fiske  em- 
phasises Virginia's  sovereignty,  saying  that 
she  had  managed  "  her  own  affairs  in  almost 
entire  independence  of  the  British  govern- 
ment" for  more  than  fifty  years.  Continu- 
ing, he  says:  "As  the  situation  was  left  by 
the  death  of  James,  so  it  remained  without 
essential  change  until  1776.  The  House  of 
Burgesses  was  undisturbed,  but  the  governor 
and  council  were  henceforth  appointed  by 
the  crown.  .  .  .  The  change  from  govern- 
ors appointed  by  the  company  to  governors 
appointed  by  the  crown  was  a  relaxation  of 
the  supervision  which  England  exercised  over 
Virginia.  For  the  company  could  devote  all 
its  attention  to  the  affairs  of  the  colony,  but 
the  crown  could  not.  Especially  in  such 
reigns  as  those  of  the  two  Charleses,  the  at- 
tention of  the  crown  was  too  much  absorbed 
with  affairs  in  Great  Britain  to  allow  it  to 
interfere  decisively  with  the  course  of  events 
in  Virginia.  The  colony  was  thus  in  the  main 
thrown  back  upon  its  own  resources,  and  such 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          23 

a  state  of  things  was  most  favourable  to  its 
wholesome  development."  5 

Fiske  would  not  have  been  confused  had  he 
known  that  Great  Britain  and  Virginia  were 
nations  independent  of  each  other,  acknowl- 
edging allegiance  to  a  sovereign  common  to 
them  both.  Of  course  the  king  exercised  his 
authority  through  the  governors  that  he  ap- 
pointed. They  were  not  the  emissaries  of  a 
foreign  potentate,  but  officers  of  a  sovereign 
of  Virginia's  own  selection.  Nor  was  Vir- 
ginia's king  the  British  government — not  by 
several  games  of  cricket. 

By  1649  Virginia's  population  had  increased 
to  15,000  Caucasians  and  300  negroes.  Charles 
I  was  p»ut  to  death  during  this  year.  The 
event  aroused  the  subjects  of  his  American 
kingdom  to  great  indignation.  However,  his 
death  did  not  affect  the  sovereignty  of  the 
American  nations  in  the  least;  but,  as  we  shall 
see,  Virginia  exercised  a  power  of  sovereignty 
during  the  Commonwealth  period  among  the 
highest  that  a  nation  may  exercise. 

Virginia's  population  and  her  wealth  con- 
tinued to  increase.  In  1670,  several  years 
after  the  fall  of  the  Commonwealth,  while 

s  Fiske,  vol.  i,  pp.  238-239. 


24          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

Charles  II  was  on  the  Virginian  throne,  her 
population  had  increased  to  38,000  Cau- 
casians and  2,000  negroes.  The  authority  of 
the  king,  defied  (for  several  months  during 
1676, — while  a  government  republican  in  form 
was  maintained  by  the  first  American  rebel — 
was  reestablished  by  the  Virginian  people, 
who  overthrew  Bacon's  government  without 
the  aid  of  any  other  people.  National  devel- 
opment continued  with  great  rapidity. 

In  1750  Virginia's  population,  as  estimated 
by  Smyth,  consisted  of  250,000  Caucasians 
and  250,000  negroes.6  So  Virginia  then  was 
indeed  among  the  powerful  nations  of  the 
world. 

According  to  the  first  federal  census  (1790). 
Virginia's  population  consisted  of  454,183 
Caucasians  and  293,427  negroes;  or,  exclusive 
of  Indians,  her  total  population  was  747,610. 
After  consulting  several  authorities,  I  esti- 
mate that  in  1776,  twenty-six  years  after 
Smyth  made  his  estimate,  and  fourteen  years 
before  the  first  federal  census  was  taken,  the 
population  consisted  of  about  420,000  Cau- 
casians and  about  250,000  negroes.  In  view 

«  Smyth,  Tours  in  the  United  States,  London,  1784,  vol. 
i,  p.  72,  quoted  by  Fiske,  vol.  2,  p.  191. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          25 

of  the  first  census,  evidently  Smyth's  estimate 
of  the  negro  population  was  too  high,  while 
probably  his  estimate  of  the  white  population 
was  too  low.  Few  persons  settled  in  America 
between  1776  and  1790,  and  few  negroes  were 
brought  to  any  part  of  the  continent  during 
those  years. 

During  this  period  of  Virginia's  growth,  all 
the  American  nations  fared  well  so  far1  as 
their  sovereignty  was  concerned.  Several  be- 
sides Virginia  at  'this  time  were  powerful 
countries.  For  example,  in  1790  the  popula- 
tion of  Massachusetts,  one  of  the  small  na- 
tions, was  387,787,  exclusive  of  Indians,  but 
including  slaves. 


THE  POWHATAN  WAR 

The  highest  power  of  sovereignty  that  a 
nation  may  exercise  is  the  ability  successfully 
to  wage  war.  Not  only  did  Virginia  unas- 
sisted fight  out  several  wars  between  1607 
and  1865,  in  which  she  was  victorious,  but  she 
also  dictated  the  terms  of  peace.  During  this 
period  she  fought  foreign  countries,  European 
as  well  as  American,  and  Indian  nations  oc- 
cupying her  own  territory.  More  than  once 


26          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

she  engaged  in  civil  strife.  As  a  world  power, 
acting  within  her  own  sovereign  rights,  she 
entered  into  treaties  with  other  great  world 
powers,  including  the  united  kingdoms,  for 
when  she  made  a  treaty  with  Cromwell's  gov- 
ernment the  articles  were  signed  by  Crom- 
well's commissioners  on  behalf  of  England 
and  by  Virginia's  council  on  behalf  of  Vir- 
ginia, "  as  equal  treating  equal,"  an  assertion 
of  sovereignty  that  Great  Britain  did  not  dis- 
pute. 

To  review  all  Virginia's  wars  is  not  nec- 
essary in  this  oration,  but  I  shall  refer  to 
several. 

In  1622  the  Powhatan  nation  made  war 
upon  Virginia.  So  severe  was  the  fighting 
that  she  lost  about  nine  per  cent,  of  her  popu- 
lation. However,  three  Powhatans  probably 
gave  their  lives  in  payment  of  every  life  that 
they  took.  The  terms  of  peace  were  dictated 
by  Virginia,  and  a  treaty  was  made  between 
the  two  nations. 


THE  WAR  BETWEEN  MARYLAND  AND  VIRGINIA 

The  king  did  not  always  keep  his  word. 
That  part  of  Virginia's  territory  now  known 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          27 

as  Maryland  became  an  independent  nation 
through  the  treachery  of  a  king  who  was  not 
always  just  while  governing  several  nations  at 
the  same  time.  Many  rulers  have  found  it 
difficult  to  govern  one  nation,  so  we  should 
forgive  the  mistakes  made  by  Virginia's  liege 
lord,  I  suppose.  A  state  of  war  soon  existed. 
Maryland  having  taken  possession  of  Kent 
Island,  a  part  of  Virginia's  territory,  and  in- 
habited by  her  citizens,  William  Claiborne, 
the  Virginian  secretary  of  state,  in  1633  de- 
manded of  Maryland's  sovereign,  who  was  also 
the  British  king,  that  he  take  his  Maryland 
subjects  from  Virginia's  territory.  Where- 
upon the  king  commanded  Lord  Baltimore  to 
withdraw  from  Kent  Island.  The  command 
was  not  obeyed. 

I  have  intimated  that  John  Fiske  did  not 
know  that  Virginia  was  a  kingdom  independ- 
ent of  all  other  nations,  governed  by  a  sover- 
eign of  her  own  selection.  In  justice  to  New 
England's  historian,  who  possibly  did  try  to 
tell  the  story  of  Virginia's  people,  I  now 
quote  from  his  account  of  the  war  between 
Virginia  and  Maryland: 

"  So  the  winter  wore  away  without  incident, 
but  early  in  April,  1635,  one  of  Claiborne's 


28          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

ships,  commanded  by  one  Thomas  Smith,  was 
seized  in  the  Patuxent  Kiver  by  Captain 
Fleete;  she  was  condemned  for  trading  with- 
out a  license,  and  was  confiscated  and  sold 
with  all  her  cargo.  Claiborne  then  sent  out 
an  armed  sloop,  the  Cockatrice,  to  make  re- 
prisals upon  Maryland  shipping;  but  Calvert 
was  wid-e  awake  and  sent  Cornwallis  with  a 
stronger  force  of  two  armed  pinnaces,  which 
overtook  the  Cockatrice  in  Pocomoke  Eiver 
and  captured  her  after  a  brisk  skirmish  in 
which  half  a  dozen  men  were  killed  and  more 
wounded.  That  was  on  April  23,  and  on  May 
10  there  was  another  fight  in  the  harbour  of 
Great  Wighcocomoco,  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Pocomoke,  in  which  Thomas  Smith  com- 
manded for  Claiborne  and  defeated  the  Mary- 
landers  with  more  bloodshed."7 

In  the  next  paragraph  Fiske  tells  us  that 
in  "the  midst  of  these  unseemly  quarrels  the 
kingdom  of  Virginia  witnessed  something  like 
a  revolution,"  meaning  a  civil  war.  Did 
Fiske  see  the  light  for  a  while?  "  The  king- 
dom of  Virginia  witnessed  something  like  a 
revolution."  For  a  while  New  England  did 
not  occupy  all  John  Fiske. 

i  Fiske,  vol.  i,  p.  293. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          29 

Later  Virginia  entered  into  an  alliance  with 
Maryland  in  order  to  wage  a  common  war 
against  the  Indians  along  the  Potomac. 

All  the  American  sovereignties  waged  wars 
against  foreign  nations.  Those  wars  need  not 
be  considered  here.  But  we  should  bear  in 
mind  that  each  nation  maintained  her  exist- 
ence as  a  sovereign  entity. 

THE  FRENCH  AND  INDIAN  WAR 

As  I  have  said,  the  American  nations  fre- 
quently combined  in  order  to  wage  war 
against  sovereign  powers.  They  frequently 
assisted  the  king  who  was  common  to  them 
all  in  the  wars  in  which  one  of  his  peoples  or 
more  were  engaged.  When  these  wars  were 
fought  on  American  soil  the  American  na- 
tions received  but  little  assistance  from  the 
English  people.  I  shall  not  go  into  the  de- 
tails of  King  William's  War,  which  was  ended 
in  1697;  nor  Queen  Anne's  War,  in  which 
large  armies  were  engaged,  a  single  army  of 
allies  numbering  7,000  soldiers  and  800  ma- 
rines,8 and  which  was  closed  by  the  Treaty  of 
Utrecht,  in  1713;  nor  King  George's  War, 

sSteele,  vol.  i,  p.  3. 


30          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

which  was  ended  in  1748  by  the  treaty  of  Aix- 
la-Chapelle;  but  I  shall  ask  you  to  consider  a 
few  features  of  the  French  and  Indian  War, 
which  really  began  in  1753,  when  Governor 
Dinwiddie  sent  Major  Washington  to  Vir- 
ginia's frontier  bearing  a  message  to  the 
French  commander,  in  which  he  was  told  to 
leave  Virginian  soil,  and  which  ended,  we 
may  say,  when  the  Treaty  of  Paris  was  signed 
in  1763.  In  this  war  the  British  troops  un- 
der Braddock  were  cut  to  pieces,  his  army 
was  annihilated,  and  probably  no  British  sol- 
dier of  his  command  would  have  lived  to  see 
England  again  had  not  Washington  and  a 
few  Virginian  troops  taken  part  in  the  battle. 
England  and  France  formally  declared  war 
against  each  other  in  1756.  This  war  did  not 
meet  with  the  full  approval  of  Virginians,  al- 
though they  were  at  war  with  the  French  and 
the  Indians  themselves;  nor  was  it  approved 
by  all  the  citizens  of  the  other  American  na- 
tions. When  the  British  government  asked 
the  American  peoples  for  large  armies,  only 
4,000  men  took  up  their  arms.  However, 
later,  in  1758,  says  Major  Steele,  "  Pitt  asked 
for  20,000,  and  they  responded  with  alacrity." 
In  the  same  paragraph  he  goes  on  to  say  that 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          31 

in  June  "  Abercrombie  had  an  army  of  more 
than  15,000  men,  over  6,000  of  whom  were 
British  regulars,  encamped  about  the  ruins 
of  Fort  William  Henry,  at  the  head  of  Lake 
George.  This  was  the  largest  body  of  troops 
that  had  ever  been  assembled  on  the  American 
continent." 9  Thus  we  find  that  much  less 
than  half  the  men  were  British,  in  the  largest 
army  that  ever  assembled  on  the  American 
continent  until  a  few  years  after  the  middle 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  At  that  time  Vir- 
ginia could  have  put  50,000  white  men  into 
the  field,  inasmuch  as  an  army  of  that  size 
would  have  been  merely  one-fifth  of  her  white 
population. 

BACON'S  REBELLION 

The  sovereignty  of  a  nation  is  not  affected 
by  her  civil  wars  so  long  as  all  other  nations 
are  neutral.  While  civil  strife  may  overthrow 
a  dynasty,  to  be  replaced  by  another  dynasty, 
or  may  alter  the  form  of  the  government, — 
the  nation  becoming  a  republic  instead  of  a 
monarchy,  for  example, — such  changes  in 
themselves  do  not  affect  the  nation's  sover- 

»  Steele,  vol.  i,  p.  12. 


32          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

eignty.    Later  on  I  shall  have  occasion  to  re- 
mind you  of  this  statement  of  fact. 

Virginia's  great  civil  war  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  which  was  fought  in  1676,  just  one 
hundred  years  before  the  Declaration  of  In- 
dependence was  signed,  was  the  first  attempt 
to  make  a  republic  out  of  any  one  of  the  Amer- 
ican kingdoms.  I  shall  not  review  the  strife 
known  as  Bacon's  Rebellion  in  many  of  its  de- 
tails. It  was  fought  by  Virginians  unaided 
by  any  foreign  power.  The  political  events 
that  caused  Bacon  and  his  followers  to  over- 
throw the  authority  of  their  king  need  not  be 
discussed  here,  but  I  shall  say  that  there  is 
no  more  interesting  study  in  American  his- 
tory than  Bacon's  Rebellion;  and  no  more 
picturesque  person  than  Nathaniel  Bacon 
has  ever  lived  upon  this  continent,  I  safely 
add.  A  leader  of  men,  a  military  genius,  re- 
sourceful as  few  men  have  been  resourceful, 
he  deserves  a  place  in  the  front  rank  of  great 
Virginians.  His  war  was  not  waged  against 
Virginia's  sovereignty;  he  fought  for  human 
freedom — for  the  rights  of  men  as  men,  as  he 
saw  those  rights.  Indeed,  were  I  asked  to 
name  three  men  of  Virginia  that  tower  above 
all  Virginians  other  than  themselves,  I  should 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          33 

name  them  in  chronological  order — John 
Smith,  Nathaniel  Bacon,  and  Robert  Edward 
Lee. 

Bacon's  Rebellion  did  not  originate  in  quar- 
rels among  communities.  Later  on  I  shall  re- 
fer to  the  rise  of  sectionalism  in  Virginia. 
Now  I  pause  but  to  say  that  probably  the 
first  element  that  is  developed  in  the  charac- 
ter of  a  nation  is  provincialism — the  entire 
nation  by  the  world  said  to  be  provincial. 
There  is  but  a  step  between  provincialism  and 
sectionalism,  for  sectionalism  is  merely  pro- 
vincialism divided,  the  home  rule  of  provin- 
cialism, as  it  were.  The  strength  of  a  nation 
is  sectionalism.  Civil  wars  may  result,  but 
the  power  of  the  political  body  is  increased, 
while  the  life  of  the  people  undoubtedly  is 
made  more  interesting.  While  Bacon's  Re- 
bellion did  not  originate  in  sectionalism, 
nevertheless  there  were  sections  in  Virginia 
so  early  as  1624.  Even  then  there  was  an 
eastern  Virginia  and  a  western  Virginia. 

Governor  Berkeley,  the  king's  representa- 
tive, found  that  he  was  not  strong  enough  to 
oppose  Bacon,  so  he  fled  to  the  Eastern  Shore. 
Bacon  marched  his  army  to  Middle  Planta- 
tion, which  later  became  Williamsburg,  the 


34          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

capital  of  the  nation,  and  there  he  was  lord 
of  all  Virginia,  save  the  Eastern  Shore,  a  part 
of  the  commonwealth  that  remained  faithful 
to  the  king.  Mrs.  Stanard,  of  Kichmond,  has 
closely  studied  the  history  of  Virginia  under 
Bacon's  republic,  and  the  result  of  her  study 
is  a  valuable  book.  In  this  volume  we  are 
told  that  before  the  rebel  left  Middle  Planta- 
tion to  fight  the  Indians  he  issued  a  summons 
in  the  name  of  the  king,  which  paper,  signed 
by  four  members  of  the  council,  commanded 
the  assembly  to  convene  September  4,  1676, 
that  the  affairs  of  the  colony  might  be  man- 
aged until  the  commander  should  return.  Al- 
ready his  followers  had  pledged  themselves 
in  writing  to  resist  any  force  that  might  be 
sent  by  England  against  him. 

"Upon  the  seventh  of  September  Berkeley 
set  sail  for  Jamestown,  not  as  a  prisoner,  but 
with  a  fleet  consisting  of  the  recaptured  ship 
and  some  sixteen  or  seventeen  sloops  manned 
by  six  hundred  sturdy  denizens  of  Accomac, 
whom  he  is  said  to  have  bribed  to  his  service 
with  promises  of  plunder  of  all  who  had  taken 
Bacon's  oath, — *  catch  that  catch  could/ — 
twenty-one  years'  exemption  from  all  taxes 
except  church  dues,  and  regular  pay  of  twelve- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          35 

pence  per  day  so  long  as  they  should  serve 
under  his  colours."10 

One  historian  asserts  that  Berkeley's  force 
was  one  thousand  when  he  sailed  from  the 
Eastern  Shore.11 

The  engineering  operations  of  both  armies 
were  quite  extensive.  A  fierce  battle  was 
fought  between  Bacon  and  Berkeley,  which 
forced  the  governor  to  return  to  his  strong- 
hold. But  the  war  was  not  over,  as  the  young 
rebel  probably  knew. 

"  His  plans  were  now  suddenly  interrupted 
by  a  report  from  Kappahannock  County  that 
Colonel  Brent,  who,  it  seems,  had  gone  over 
to  the  Governor's  side,  was  advancing  upon 
him  at  the  head  of  eleven  hundred  militia. 
No  sooner  had  he  heard  this  news  than  he 
ordered  the  drums  to  beat  up  his  soldiers,  un- 
der their  colors,  and  told  them  of  the  strength 
of  the  approaching  army,  and  of  Brent's 
'  resolution '  to  fight  him,  and  '  demanded 
theirs.' 

"With  their  wonted  heartiness,  his  men 
made  answer  in  '  shouts  and  acclamations, 
while  the  drums  thundered  a  march  to  meet 
the  promised  conflict.' 

10  Mary  Newton  Stanard,  The  Story  of  Bacon's  Rebel- 
lion, p.  111.  nFiske,  vol.  ii,  p.  87. 


36          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

"  Thus  encouraged,  Bacon  set  out  without 
delay  to  give  the  enemy  even  an  earlier  chance 
to  unload  his  guns  than  he  had  bargained  for. 
He  had  been  on  the  march  for  several  days 
when,  instead  of  meeting  a  hostile  army,  he 
was  greeted  with  the  cheerful  tidings  that 
Brent's  followers,  who  were  described  as 
'  men,  not  soldiers,'  had  left  their  commander 
to  '  shift  for  himself.'  They  had  heard  how 
the  Kebel  had  beat  the  Governor  out  of  town, 
and  lest  he  should  'beat  them  out  of  their 
lives,'  some  of  them  determined  to  keep  a  safe 
distance  from  him,  while  most  of  them  un- 
blushingly  deserted  him,  deeming  it  the  part 
of  wisdom  *  with  the  Persians,  to  go  and  wor- 
ship the  rising  sun.' " 12 

Not  long  after  these  events  Bacon  died  of 
malaria,  which  he  contracted  while  he  was 
about  Jamestown.  Other  civil  wars  that  were 
fought  in  Virginia  need  not  be  mentioned  here. 

VIRGINIA'S  SOVEREIGNTY  CONCEDED 

That  Virginia  was  a  sovereignty  from  1578 
until  1783  was  held  by  many  eminent  persons 
during  all  those  years. 

12  Standard,    pp.    135-136. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          37 

In  his  dedication  of  Faerie  Queene,  written 
during  Elizabeth's  time,  Edmund  Spenser  re- 
fers to  his  lovely  sovereign  as  the  queen  of 
England,  France,  and  Ireland,  and  of  Vir- 
ginia. He  undoubtedly  considered  each  of 
those  countries  to  be  kingdoms. 

Charles  I  made  William  Claiborne  secre- 
tary of  state  in  "  our  kingdom  of  Virginia." 
Beverley  says  that  Charles  II  was  proclaimed 
by  Virginia  as  her  sovereign  before  he  was 
called  to  the  British  throne.13  This  statement 
was  accepted  by  many  historians  until  a  few 
years  ago.  Fiske  says  that  the  story  is  absurd, 
that  Charles  II  was  proclaimed  king  in  Eng- 
land on  the  eighth  of  May,  1661,  and  in  Vir- 
ginia on  the  twentieth  of  September  follow- 
ing, and  for  authority  refers  to  some  docu- 
ment printed  in  William  and  Mary  Quarterly. 
While  Charles  II  did  not  exercise  the  powers 
of  the  office  of  king  of  Virginia  before  he  was 
proclaimed  as  the  English  sovereign,  still  he 
actually  was  proclaimed  king  of  Virginia  be- 
fore he  was  proclaimed  king  of  England,  even 
if  the  Virginian  proclamation  was  not  heard 
around  the  world.  In  the  meanwhile  the 

is  Robert  Beverley,  History  of  Present  State  of  Virginia, 
London,  1705,  p.  56,  cited  by  Fiske,  vol.  ii,  p.  21. 


38          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

young  nation  acknowledged  no  other  king 
than  the  man  whom  she  had  called  to  her 
throne. 

Already  we  have  seen  that  the  news  of  the 
execution  of  Charles  I  was  received  in  Vir- 
ginia with  deep  indignation.  Fiske  himself 
says:  "In  October  the  assembly  declared 
that  the  beheading  of  the  king  will  enact  a 
treason  which  nobody  in  Virginia  must  dare 
to  speak  in  defence  of  under  penalty  of  death. 
It  also  spoke  of  the  fugitive  Charles  II  as 
'his  majesty  that  now  is,'  and  made  it  trea- 
son to  call  his  authority  in  question."  **  So 
Fiske  himself  quotes  from  Virginia's  proc- 
lamation, made  by  the  parliament  of  her  peo- 
ple, and  published  to  the  world  nearly  two 
years  before  Charles  II  was  proclaimed  king 
of  England.  Even  if  Virginia  did  not  for- 
mally issue  her  proclamation  before  England 
issued  hers,  still  the  spirit  of  the  times  is 
shown  in  the  assertions  of  contemporaneous 
historians.  Fiske  himself  probably  would 
have  admitted  that  Virginia  might  have  pro- 
claimed Charles  II  as  her  sovereign  at  any 
time  after  the  death  of  Charles  I  without 
asking  the  leave  of  any  other  nation. 

i*  Fiske,  vol.  i,  p.  312. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          39 


FROM  1776  TO  1783 

I  shall  not  enter  into  a  detailed  account 
of  the  causes  that  led  the  rabble  of  a  part  of 
the  people  of  each  of  the  American  nations 
to  rebel  against  their  king.  The  sovereignty 
of  none  of  the  countries  was  thereby  affected, 
although  one  may  hold  that  the  sovereignty  of 
each  was  placed  in  jeopardy,  inasmuch  as 
George  III  tried  to  make  his  American  king- 
doms and  his  European  kingdoms  into  one 
vast  empire.  I  shall  remind  you  that  the 
sovereignty  of  a  nation  is  not  necessarily  af- 
fected by  governmental  changes. 

The  rebels  did  not  fight  that  independent 
nations  might  be  made  of  colonies.  The 
American  nations  had  been  sovereign  entities 
from  the  time  that  they  were  first  settled. 
They  had  successfully  resisted  the  attacks 
made  upon  them  by  the  British  kingdom.  The 
honest  men  among  the  rebels  fought  that  they 
might  establish  governments  republican  in 
form, — believing  that  all  the  people  could  not 
be  independent  in  a  kingdom, — with  all  the 
rights  that  all  human  beings  should  be  free 
to  exercise.  The  rebels  were  unwilling  to  be 


40          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

taxed  without  their  consent,  they  said;  but 
no  one  believes  that  they  would  have  given 
their  consent  to  be  taxed  by  the  British  gov- 
ernment— or  by  any  other. 

We  shall  see  that  the  American  kingdoms 
became  republics;  but  we  shall  also  see  that 
the  rabble  did  not  bring  about  the  change. 
We  shall  see  that  the  rebellion  never  reached 
the  proportions  of  a  revolution,  for  we  shall 
see  that  only  a  small  part  of  the  people 
of  any  of  the  American  nations  wished  to  de- 
pose their  king.  True,  few  were  willing  to 
permit  a  foreign  government  to  exercise  over 
them  the  high  power  of  sovereignty  that  would 
be  maintained  were  that  government  to  tax 
them  for  its  own  benefit;  but,  the  rabble  ex- 
cepted,  the  peoples  of  the  American  nations 
thought  that  the  conditions  then  existing  did 
not  make  a  war  with  Great  Britain  necessary. 
More  than  once  the  king  of  the  united  king- 
doms and  the  American  kingdoms  that  were 
not  united  had  attempted  to  make  laws  com- 
mon to  the  peoples  of  all  his  nations,  but  such 
international  complications  had  been  adjusted 
without  an  appeal  to  arms,  and  very  little 
diplomacy  had  been  used  in  settling  all  differ- 
ences. The  American  kingdoms  always  had 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          41 

put  their  king  right  when  he  had  been  wrong, 
and  in  doing  so  he  had  been  made  to  suffer 
very  little  inconvenience. 

At  this  time  Tories  controlled  the  British 
ministry.  Not  only  was  the  government  in 
sympathy  with  the  rabble,  but  the  king  had 
no  wish  to  be  harsh  with  any  of  his  American 
subjects.  The  rebellion  was  not  taken  seri- 
ously by  him,  nor  by  the  rebels  themselves, 
while  nearly  all  of  the  American  peoples  con- 
sidered the  acts  and  the  utterances  of  the  mobs 
very  much  as  we  now  consider  the  crimes  and 
the  intemperate  words  of  the  rabble  that  is 
always  with  us.  I  do  not  go  too  far  when  I 
say  that  the  rebellion  would  have  been 
brought  to  an  end  within  a  few  days  from  the 
time  that  it  began  had  the  British  command- 
ers and  the  American  peoples  considered  the 
rebellion  to  be  more  than  the  temporary  ex- 
pression of  a  rabble  muttering  against  con- 
stituted authority. 

Already  I  have  quoted  from  Major  Steele. 
His  American  Campaigns,  in  two  volumes, 
was  published  last  year  by  the  Office  of  the 
Chief  of  Staff,  War  Department,  Washington, 
and  is  known  as  Document  No.  324.  It  is  used 
as  a  text-book  in  the  post-graduate  military 


42          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

schools,  where  officers  of  the  army,  selected  be- 
cause of  the  high  degree  of  their  proficiency, 
pursue  their  studies  in  the  science  of  war. 
These  volumes  represent  a  part  of  Major 
Steele's  work  of  three  years  as  lecturer  in 
military  history  in  the  Army  Service  Schools 
at  Fort  Leavenworth.  Their  value  is  very 
great.  In  his  department  of  science  I  know  of 
no  writer  of  higher  authority  than  Major 
Steele. 

Another  book  of  great  value  from  which  I 
shall  quote  frequently  is  The  Military  Policy 
of  the  United  States,  by  General  Emory  Up- 
ton, U.  S.  A.,  a  new  edition  of  which  recently 
has  been  published  by  the  Office  of  the  Chief 
of  Staff,  War  Department,  as  Document  No. 
290,  with  an  introduction  by  Elihu  Boot, 
written  by  him  while  he  was  secretary  of  war. 
This  book  also  is  studied  by  army  officers  that 
are  students — rather  than  pupils — at  military 
schools. 

FIGHTING  STRENGTH  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NATIONS 

According  to  the  first  census,  the  population 
of  the  American  nations  in  1790  was  3,231,317 
Caucasians  and  697,897  negroes,  making  a 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          43 

total  of  3,929,214,  or  a  population  of  nearly 
four  millions.  In  estimating  the  fighting 
strength  of  the  nations  the  negro  must  be 
taken  into  consideration,  for  the  people  of 
a  nation  must  live  while  they  are  at  war.  The 
negroes  were  easily  controlled.  There  has 
never  been  a  widespread  uprising  of  negroes 
on  this  continent.  The  Southampton  Insur- 
rection, the  most  important  of  negro  revolts 
that  have  occurred  on  this  continent,  involved 
a  small  territory  only.  When  we  consider  the 
character  of  the  negro,  we  readily  understand 
that  there  could  never  be  an  important  negro 
organisation.  Nevertheless,  in  considering 
this  rebellion  I  shall  eliminate  the  negro,  and 
I  shall  accept  General  Upton's  estimate  of 
the  population  of  the  American  nations,  which 
apparently  does  not  include  negroes.  He  as- 
sumed the  number  of  the  American  peoples 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Revolution  to  be  three 
millions.15  There  were  more  than  three  mil- 
lion white  persons  in  the  American  nations  in 
1776,  I  think.  But,  as  I  have  said,  I  shall 
accept  General  Upton's  estimate  for  the  pur- 
pose of  this  oration. 

IB  Emory  Upton,  The  Military  Policy  of  the  United 
States,  War  Department,  Document  No.  290,  Office  of  the 
Chief  of  Staff,  p.  66. 


44          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

I  shall  also  consider  the  fighting  strength 
of  the  American  peoples  to  have  been  so  small 
as  one-fifth  of  the  population.  This  is  a  very 
low  estimate  when  we  find  that  so  late  as  1880 
the  natural  militia  of  Virginia — males  be- 
tween the  ages  of  eighteen  and  forty-four  years 
inclusive — was  264,033  Caucasians  and  102,- 
426  negroes,  a  total  of  366,459  in  a  male 
population  of  747,589,  or  nearly  one-half  the 
male  population.  Surely  in  earlier  days,  when 
men  were  not  penned  up  in  cities,  when  males 
were  more  numerous  than  females  in  new 
countries,  when  men  were  sturdy  at  eighty,  the 
fighting  strength  of  the  American  peoples 
must  have  exceeded  one-fifth  of  their  popula- 
tion. 

CHARACTER  OP   THE   RABBLE  FORCE 

The  rebels  always  had  a  large  paper  army, 
although  that  army  was  never  more  than  nine 
per  cent  of  the  fighting  strength  of  the  Amer- 
ican nations.  By  "  paper  army."  I  mean  the 
men  that  were  counted  as  soldiers  who  never 
saw  service,  who  enlisted  in  militia  organisa- 
tions for  periods  ranging  from  a  day  to  sev- 
eral months,  and  who  were  usually  bribed  to 
violate  the  allegiance  that  they  owed  to  their 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          45 

king.  A  table  submitted  by  the  secretary  of 
war  to  congress  in  1790  shows  that  the  entire 
paper  army  of  the  rebels  for  the  year  1776 
was  89,661;  yet,  says  General  Upton,  the 
average  of  that  paper  army  could  not  have 
been  more  than  between  40,000  to  50,000  men. 
As  we  presently  shall  see,  the  largest  force 
that  Washington  could  have  put  into  the  field 
during  the  entire  war  was  17,000  men. 

I  will  show  you  how  paper  soldiers  were 
made.  On  March  29,  1779,  congress  recom- 
mended Virginia  and  North  Carolina  to  raise 
as  many  men  for  their  defence  as  they  could, 
the  soldiers  to  serve  for  one  year,  and  not  to 
be  obliged  to  go  north  of  the  Potomac  river. 
A  bounty  of  two  hundred  dollars  was  to  be 
given  to  each  of  these  soldiers,  and  their 
names  were  to  be  entered  in  the  rebels'  ar- 
chives as  a  part  of  their  military  force.  To 
quote  from  General  Upton  again :  "  Large  for 
the  time  as  were  the  bounties  granted  by  con- 
gress, those  offered  by  the  states  were  still 
larger.  The  legislature  of  New  Jersey,  to  fill 
its  quota  for  its  three  battalions,  offered  two 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars  to  each  recruit,  in 
addition  to  the  clothing,  land,  and  two  hun- 
dred dollars  allowed  by  congress.  While  the 


46          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

legislature  of  Virginia,  on  the  third  of  May, 
offered  to  every  recruit  for  the  war  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifty  dollars,  a  suit  of  clothes  once 
a  year,  and  one  hundred  acres  of  land."  16  In- 
deed was  the  patriotism  of  the  rabble  suffi- 
cient to  make  them  blush  in  their  confusion 
of  innocence. 

According  to  the  tables  that  the  secretary 
of  war  prepared  in  1790,  many  men,  includ- 
ing the  paper  militia,  enlisted  for  a  few  days 
only.  These  tables  show  that  the  whole  paper 
force  for  1775  was  37,623.  The  tables  also 
give  the  following  information:  whole  rebel 
paper  force,  for  1776,  89,661,  of  which  Vir- 
ginia supplied  6,181  and  Massachusetts  20,- 
372;  for  1777,  68,720,  of  which  Virginia  sup- 
plied 11,013  and  Massachusetts  12,591;  for 
1778,  51,046,  of  which  Virginia  supplied  7,830 
and  Massachusetts  13,437;  for  1779,  44,275, 
of  which  Virginia  supplied  8,573  and  Massa- 
chusetts 7,738;  for  1780,  43,076,  of  which  Vir- 
ginia supplied  6,986  and  Massachusetts  7,- 
889;  for  1781,  29,340,  of  which  Virginia 
supplied  6,119  and  Massachusetts  5,298; 
for  1782,  18,006,  of  which  Virginia  supplied 
2,204  and  Massachusetts  4,423;  for  1783,  13,- 

i«  Upton,  p.  41. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          47 

477,  of  which  Virginia  supplied  629  and 
Massachusetts  4,370.  Thus  of  rebel  paper 
soldiers,  Virginia  supplied  49,935  and  Massa- 
chusetts 80,118;  while  the  combined  paper 
strength  of  the  rebels  was  395,224.  The  high- 
est number  of  paper  soldiers  that  Virginia 
supplied  during  any  one  year  was  11,013, 
while  the  lowest  number  that  she  supplied  in 
any  one  year  was  629,  yet  Virginia's  fighting 
strength  was  something  like  100,000  men.  The 
small  state  of  Massachusetts  supplied  nearly 
double  the  number  of  men  that  were  supplied 
by  Virginia. 

During  the  last  year  of  the  rebellion  Vir- 
ginia had  fewer  men  under  arms  than  she  has 
had  from  1624  to  the  present  day.  During 
the  entire  insurrection  the  Virginian  rebel 
paper  force,  the  bulk  of  which  admittedly 
stayed  at  home,  was  less  than  5,000  men.  The 
average  paper  force  during  the  rebellion  was 
less  than  44,000  men,  or  about  one  and  one- 
half  per  cent  of  the  whole  population,  or 
about  one  man  out  of  every  350  white  men. 

During  1776,  when  the  aggregate  number 
of  rebel  insurgent  paper  troops  reached  89,- 
661,  the  enemy  had  but  20,121  troops  in  all 
America,  although  operating  in  the  enemy's 


48          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

territory,  and  in  one  year  only  did  the  English 
force  number  so  many  as  42,075.  The  aver- 
age force  of  the  British  was  about  30,000  men. 
These  figures,  save  for  the  average,  are  taken 
from  General  Upton's  book.17 

In  1775  the  military  strength  of  the  Amer- 
ican nations  was  600,000  men,  based  on  the 
low  estimate  of  one-fifth  of  the  white  popula- 
tion alone.  Nevertheless,  as  General  Upton 
tells  us,  "  The  largest  force,  Continental  and 
militia,  that  Washington  could  lead  to  battle 
at  any  one  time  was  less  than  seventeen  thou- 
sand, while  at  the  battles  of  Trenton  and 
Princeton,  during  the  time  of  our  greatest 
peril,  his  effective  strength  was  less  than  four 
thousand." 18  Thus  at  no  time  were  the  rebels 
able  to  put  on  the  field  much  more  than  one- 
half  of  one  per  cent  of  the  white  population 
of  the  American  nations. 

Let  us  consider  the  kind  of  force  that 
was  supposed  to  constitute  an  army.  Ma- 
jor Steele  says  that  when  Washington  took 
command  at  Boston,  July  2,  1775,  his  men 
made  "a  rabble  without  uniforms,  without 
tents,  without  supplies,  without  discipline."19 

"  Upton,  p.   59.  is  Upton,  p.  65. 

i»  Steele,  vol.   i,  p.   25. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          49 

In  the  same  paragraph  he  takes  Washington 
to  task,  saying  that  he  had  plenty  of  time  to 
make  an  army  of  his  rabble,  "  for  no  fighting 
took  place  within  the  northern  colonies  until 
the  Battle  of  Long  Island,  more  than  a  year 
later,  August  27,  1776."  General  Upton  also 
pays  his  respects  to  Washington  and  to  his 
creatures,  saying:  "When  Washington  took 
command  his  army  numbered  17,000  men, 
but  the  number  fit  for  duty  did  not  exceed  14,- 
500.  The  strength  of  the  enemy  was  estimated 
by  the  council  of  war  at  11,500;  but  after  de- 
ducting the  sick  and  wounded  his  real  effective 
strength  was  not  over  6,500.  Notwithstand- 
ing this  disparity  in  numbers,  neither  Wash- 
ington nor  his  generals  deemed  it  prudent  to 
attack,  and  the  year  passed  away  in  hopeless 
inactivity."  20 

General  Howe  and  Admiral  Howe,  says 
Major  Steele,  both  sympathised  with  the  col- 
onies, and  he  quotes  Goldwin  Smith,  thus: 
"As  a  member  of  Parliament  he  [General 
Howe]  had  pledged  himself  to  his  constituents 
not  to  fight  against  the  Americans,  and  he 
must  have  been  fettered  by  that  pledge."  In 
the  same  paragraph  Major  Steele  says  that 

20  Upton,  p.  9. 


50          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

it  "  is  too  much  to  say  that  he  was  unfaithful 
to  the  trust  imposed  upon  him,  although  the 
evidence  certainly  points  to  that  verdict."  21 
The  inactivity  of  the  British  thus  was  due  to 
several  causes,  a  few  of  which  I  shall  show 
later. 

Even  John  Adams  admitted  that  one-third 
of  his  people  were  loyal  to  their  king.  Had 
he  entirely  obeyed  the  demands  of  his  con- 
science he  would  have  said  that  a  larger  part 
of  his  people  by  far  were  their  sovereign's 
obedient  subjects.  In  Virginia  nearly  all  the 
people  were  loyal,  as  presently  we  shall  see. 

PROGRESS  OF  THE  REBELLION 

Not  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  New  Eng- 
land accompanied  Washington  to  New  York 
after  the  evacuation  of  Boston,  for  Ma- 
jor Steele  says  that  Washington,  in  taking  the 
bulk  of  his  force,  took  only  8,000  men  with 
him. 

Again  to  quote  from  General  Upton :  "  The 
total  loss  of  Washington's  Army  in  killed, 
from  the  time  that  he  took  command,  to  the 
end  of  the  siege  of  Boston,  did  not  reach  20, 
while  the  whole  loss  in  killed  from  the  battle 

21  Steele,  vol.  i,  p.  37. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          51 

of  Lexington  was  less  than  200." 22  Major 
Steele,  further  commenting  on  the  evacuation 
of  Boston,  says :  "  The  strangest  thing  of  all, 
he  [Howe]  left  there,  to  be  seized  by  the 
rebels,  '  more  than  200  cannon,  tons  of  pow- 
der and  lead,  thousands  of  muskets,  and  all 
sorts  of  miscellaneous  military  stores.'  It 
was  not  until  after  the  17th  of  March  that  he 
[Howe]  sailed — twelve  days  after  Washing- 
ton had  seized  the  heights.  He  certainly  had 
time  to  destroy  those  arms  and  supplies.  This 
and  all  of  General  Howe's  subsequent  con- 
duct cannot  fail  to  make  the  impartial  stu- 
dent suspect  him."23  On  the  next  page  he 
says  that  Howe's  withdrawal  to  Halifax  so 
encouraged  the  insurgents  that  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence  followed  a  few  months 
afterward. 

Washington  seems  to  have  understood  that 
his  rabble  capitalised  the  insurrection,  ex- 
ploiting the  American  peoples  all  they  could. 
I  will  quote  from  a  letter  that  he  wrote  to 
the  president  of  the  council  of  Massachusetts 
Bay  under  date  of  August  7,  1775 : 

"  By  the  general  return  made  to  me  for  last 

22  Upton,  p.   12.  23  Steele,  vol.  i,  p.  25. 


52          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

week,  I  find  that  there  are  great  numbers  of 
soldiers  and  non-commissioned  officers  who  ab- 
sent themselves  from  duty,  the  greater  part  of 
whom,  I  have  reason  to  believe,  are  at  their 
respective  homes  in  different  parts  of  the 
country;  some  employed  by  their  officers  on 
their  farms  and  others  drawing  pay  from  the 
public,  while  they  are  working  on  their  plan- 
tations or  for  hire.  My  utmost  exertions  have 
not  been  able  to  prevent  this  base  and  per- 
nicious conduct.  I  must,  therefore,  beg  the 
assistance  of  the  General  Court  to  cooperate 
with  me  in  such  measures  as  may  remedy  this 
mischief. 

"  I  need  not  enlarge  upon  the  ruinous  con- 
sequence of  suffering  such  infamous  deserters 
and  defrauders  of  the  public  to  go  unnoticed 
or  unpunished,  nor  use  any  arguments  to  in- 
duce the  general  court  to  give  it  immediate 
attention." 24 

The  Battle  of  Long  Island  was  disastrous  to 
the  rabble,  so  Washington  retreated  to  New 
Jersey.  By  the  time  that  he  had  reached  New 
Brunswick  his  force  was  reduced  to  3,000,  the 

2*  Sparks,  Writings  of  Washington,  vol.  iii,  pp.  65-66, 
quoted  by  Upton,  pp.  8-9. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          53 

rest  of  his  followers  having  deserted  or  their 
terms  of  service  having  expired.25  January  3, 
1777,  Washington  reported  to  Congress  that 
"  the  whole  of  our  numbers  in  New  Jersey,  fit 
for  duty  at  this  time,  is  under  3,000.  These, 
981  excepted,  are  militia  and  stand  engaged 
only  until  the  last  of  this  month."  Virginians 
will  be  interested  to  know  that  in  his  report 
he  said  that  of  Virginians  a  "  handful  of  men  " 
only  were  with  him.  Commenting  on  this 
paper,  quoting  Sparks,  General  Upton  says 
that  Washington's  regular  soldiers  were  thus 
reduced  to  less  than  1,000,  while  his  enemy 
had  more  than  20,000  veterans  in  and  about 
New  York. 

Everybody  seemed  to  think  that  the  rebel- 
lion was  effectually  suppressed.  Major  Steele 
says  that  when  "Washington  retreated  into 
New  Jersey,  instead  of  pursuing  his  demoral- 
ised band  to  its  destruction,  Howe  followed  it 
slowly  a  short  way,"  that  "he  made  no  at- 
tempt to  do  anything  at  all  during  the  win- 
ter months  but  riot  in  the  fleshpots  and  fri- 
volities of  social  life  in  New  York  or  Phila- 
delphia." The  rebels  entered  New  York  and 
left  as  they  pleased.26 

25  Steele,  vol.  i,  p.  30.  20  Steele,  vol.  i,  p.  37. 


54          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

Many  of  the  intelligent  inhabitants  of  the 
American  nations  did  not  even  know  that 
there  was  a  rebellion  until  several  years  after 
the  British  soldiers  had  been  fired  on  at  Lex- 
ington, this  for  the  reason  that  the  operations 
of  the  rabble  were  confined  to  a  few  places, 
beyond  which  there  were  few  evidences  of  re- 
bellion, if  any.  After  a  bit  of  flurry  in  South 
Carolina  in  June,  1776,  the  southern  nations 
were  not  again  annoyed  by  the  presence  of  the 
English  until  the  autumn  of  1778,  we  are 
told  by  Major  Steele.  Few  of  the  inhabitants 
of  Virginia  saw  a  redcoat  during  the  entire 
nine  years  of  the  rebellion.  By  the  late  au- 
tumn of  1778  the  British  occupied  New  York 
City  alone,  and,  says  Major  Steele :  "  Outside 
of  the  immediate  theatre  of  operations,  the 
Americans  up  to  this  time  had  suffered  few 
of  the  discomforts  of  war." 2T 

BABBLE   FIGHTING 

We  have  seen  how  these  bribed  creatures 
fought — or  did  not  fight — at  Boston  and  at 
New  York,  and  we  have  imagined  their  speed 
as  they  ran  through  New  Jersey.  Now  I  am 
unable  to  resist  the  temptation  to  refer  to  the 

27  Steele,  vol.  i,  p.   43. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          55 

Battle  of  Camden,  so  I  quote  from  two  de- 
scriptions of  that  extraordinary  conflict.  I 
begin  with  Major  Steele's  account: 

"  Meanwhile  Cornwallis  had  arrived  with 
reinforcements.  The  Americans,  however, 
still  outnumbered  the  British.  There  were 
3,052  Americans,  only  1,400  of  whom  were 
regulars,  to  2,000  British.  Gates,  however, 
had  not  learned  of  the  arrival  of  Cornwallis, 
and  he  detached  400  of  his  best  Maryland 
regulars  to  join  Sumter  in  cutting  the  British 
line  of  communication  with  Charleston. 

"At  ten  o'clock  at  night  the  two  little  ar- 
mies advanced  toward  each  other,  each  hoping 
to  take  the  other  by  surprise.  The  result  was 
the  Battle  of  Camden,  August  16,  1780,  on  a 
narrow  piece  of  ground  with  an  impassable 
swamp  on  each  flank.  Gates'  Virginia  and 
North  Carolina  militia  threw  down  their 
arms,  and  fled  without  firing  a  shot.  '  Within 
fifteen  minutes,'  says  Fiske,  '  the  whole  Amer- 
ican left  became  a  mob  of  struggling  men, 
smitten  with  mortal  panic,  and  huddling  like 
sheep  in  their  wild  flight,  while  Tarleton's 
[British]  cavalry  gave  chase  and  cut  them 
down  by  scores.'  The  Maryland  brigade  be- 


56          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

haved  better;  but  it  also  was  driven  from  the 
field.  The  patriots  were  badly  defeated.  Gen- 
eral Gates  himself  escaped  to  Hillsboro,  rid- 
ing 200  miles  in  four  days." 28 

Now  I  quote  from  the  description  written 
by  one  of  the  officers  in  that  battle,  "  Light 
Horse  Harry  "  Lee,  the  father  of  the  greatest 
of  all  Virginian  soldiers: 

"  The  Maryland  leading  regiment  was  soon 
recovered  from  the  confusion  produced  by  the 
panic  of  Armand's  cavalry.  [Here  I  break 
in  upon  "the  noble  Harry"  that  I  may  tell 
you  that  even  to  this  day  the  whereabouts 
of  no  man  of  all  Armand's  cavalry  is  known. 
When  an  unknown  horseman  madly  rushes 
along  a  South  Carolinian  highway,  excite- 
ment in  all  his  features,  his  clothes  awry,  the 
onlookers  say,  "  There  goes  one  of  Armand's 
cavalrymen."]  Battle,  although  unexpected, 
was  now  inevitable,  and  General  Gates  ar- 
rayed his  army  with  promptitude.  The  Sec- 
ond Brigade  of  Maryland,  with  the  regiment 
of  Delaware,  under  General  Gist,  took  the 

28Steele,  vol.  i,  pp.  45-46. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          57 

right;  the  brigade  of  North  Carolina  the  cen- 
ter, and  that  of  Virginia,  under  Brigadier 
Stevens,  the  left.  The  First  Brigade  of  Mary- 
land was  formed  in  reserve  under  the  com- 
mand of  General  Smallwood.  To  each  bri- 
gade a  due  proportion  of  artillery  was  al- 
lotted, but  we  had  no  cavalry,  as  those  who 
fled  in  the  night  were  still  flying.  Maj.  Gen. 
Baron  de  Kalb,  charged  with  the  line  of  bat- 
tle, took  post  on  the  right,  while  the  general 
in  chief,  superintending  the  whole,  placed 
himself  on  the  road  between  the  line  and  the 
reserve. 

"The  light  of  day  dawned — the  signal  for 
battle.  Instantly  our  centre  opened  its  artil- 
lery, and  the  left  of  our  line,  under  Stevens, 
was  ordered  to  advance.  The  veterans  of  the 
enemy,  composing  its  right,  were  of  course 
opposed  to  the  Virginia  militia,  whereas  they 
ought  to  have  been  faced  by  the  Continental 
Brigade.  Stevens,  however,  exhorting  his 
soldiers  to  rely  on  the  bayonet,  advanced  with 
his  accustomed  intrepidity.  Lieut.-Col.  Otho 
Williams,  adjutant-general,  preceded  him 
with  a  band  of  volunteers,  in  order  to  unite 
the  fire  of  the  enemy  before  they  were  in 
reach  of  the  militia,  that  experience  of  its  ef- 


58          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

ficiency  might  encourage  the  latter  to  do  their 
duty. 

"The  British  general,  closely  watching  our 
motives,  discovered  this  movement  on  the  left, 
and  gave  orders  to  Webster  to  lead  into  bat- 
tle with  the  right.  The  command  was  exe- 
cuted with  the  characteristic  courage  and  in- 
telligence of  that  officer.  Our  left  was  in- 
stantly overpowered  by  the  assault;  and  the 
brave  Stevens  had  to  endure  the  mortifying 
spectacle  exhibited  by  his  flying  brigade. 
Without  exchanging  more  than  one  fire  with 
the  enemy,  they  threw  away  their  arms  and 
sought  that  safety  in  flight  which  generally 
can  be  obtained  only  by  courageous  resistance. 
The  North  Carolina  brigade,  imitating  that 
on  the  right,  followed  the  shameful  example. 
Stevens,  Gaswell,  and  Gates  himself  struggled 
to  stop  the  fugitives  and  rally  them  for  bat- 
tle; but  every  noble  feeling  of  the  heart  was 
sunk  in  base  solicitude  to  preserve  life;  and 
having  no  cavalry  to  assist  their  exertions, 
the  attempted  reclamation  failed  entirely.  .  .  . 

"Our  loss  was  very  heavy.  More  than  a 
third  of  the  Continental  troops  were  killed 
and  wounded;  and  of  the  wounded  170  were 
made  prisoners.  The  Eegiment  of  Delaware 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          59 

was  nearly  annihilated.  .  .  .  The  North 
Carolina  militia  also  suffered  greatly;  more 
than  300  were  taken  and  nearly  106  killed 
and  wounded.  Contrary  to  the  usual  course 
of  events  and  the  general  wish,  the  Virginia 
militia  who  set  the  infamous  example  which 
produced  the  destruction  of  our  army  escaped 
entirely." 29 

General  Upton  tells  us  that  an  incident  of 
the  Battle  of  Guilford  Court-house  should  not 
be  overlooked.  He  says  that  Stevens,  "prof- 
iting by  his  experience  at  Camden,  where  he 
had  been  deserted  by  his  brigade,  placed  a 
chain  of  sentinels  in  the  rear  of  the  second 
line  with  orders  to  shoot  the  first  man  who 
should  try  to  desert  his  post." 30 

In  the  spring  of  1781  La  Fayette  was  in 
command  in  Virginia,  with  3,000  men,  where 
he  was  to  resist  Cornwallis,  who  had  an  army 
of  5,000  veterans.  La  Fayette  was  joined  by 
1,000  Pennsylvanians,  and  later  was  further 
reinforced  by  Steuben,  with  1,000  men.  Let 
us  pause:  420,000  white  Virginians,  whose 
fighting  strength  could  not  have  been  less 

2»  Lee,  Memoirs,  vol.   i,  pp.    178-183,   quoted  by  Upton, 
pp.    44-45. 
so  Upton,  p.  56. 


60          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

than  80,000,  and  may  have  been  100,000,  re- 
sisted the  invasion  of  Virginia  with  French- 
men assisted  by  a  few  Pennsylvanians.  There 
may  have  been  a  few  Virginians  skulking 
about  hedges.  Does  any  Virginian  believe 
that  story? 

I  think  not.  I  recall  that  so  early  as  1676 
the  two  small  counties  that  constitute  the 
Eastern  Shore  raised  an  army  of  one  thou- 
sand men  to  uphold  the  authority  of  the  king. 
No,  Virginia  was  not  invaded.  Her  rabble 
was  in  rebellion,  which  would  be  suppressed 
by  Virginia's  sovereign  at  his  pleasure.  If 
you  take  any  other  position,  Virginians,  go 
hide  your  faces  in  shame! 

THE  KING  ABDICATES 

The  surrender  of  Cornwallis  did  not  force 
the  British  to  withdraw  from  American  ter- 
ritory. Long  before  that  event  Burgoyne  had 
surrendered  a  large  army.  General  Upton 
says  that  during  the  entire  rebellion  two 
military  events  only  "  had  a  direct  bear- 
ing upon  the  expulsion  of  the  British.  One 
of  these  was  the  capture  of  Burgoyne;  the 
other  that  of  Cornwallis — an  event  which 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          61 

was  only  made  possible  by  the  cooperation 
of  a  French  army  and  a  French  fleet." 

But  while  these  two  events  possibly  led 
George  III  to  leave  the  throne  of  his  Ameri- 
can kingdom,  they  could  not  have  greatly  in- 
fluenced him.  He  lived  in  England,  and  Eng- 
land had  been  at  war  for  more  than  two  cen- 
turies, with  brief  respites  snatched  at  inter- 
vals. During  the  time  of  the  rebellion  of 
his  American  subjects  England  was  at  war 
with  France,  with  Spain,  and  with  Holland, 
his  subjects  in  India  were  in  rebellion,  while 
beyond  his  own  English  realm  he  was  with- 
out a  friend  in  all  Europe.  Even  at  home  his 
enemies  were  thick.  The  Tories  would  shout 
with  joy  every  time  a  British  subject  laid 
down  his  life  under  fire.  Says  Major  Steele: 
"There  are,  indeed,  many  points  of  likeness 
between  the  Philippine  Insurrection  and  our 
own  Revolution;  but  there  is  this  main  dif- 
ference: our  Revolution  succeeded.  Had  it 
failed,  it  would  be  in  the  world's  annals 
merely  an  insurrection,  too,  occupying  a  few 
pages  in  British  history,  and  having  no  na- 
tional history  of  its  own."31 

Many    forget   that  the   American    nations 

si  Steele,  vol.  i,  p.  23. 


62          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

were  world  powers  at  the  time  of  the  rebel- 
lion. They  forget  that  the  last  Revolution- 
ary  pensioner  died  but  a  few  years  ago.  In- 
deed, the  last  of  the  Kevolutionary  rabble 
did  not  die  until  1869,  while  in  1875  there 
were  379  widows  of  Revolutionary  soldiers 
drawing  pensions.  No,  the  period  of  the  Revo- 
lution was  not  long  ago.  At  that  time  the 
population  of  England  was  not  greater  than 
twice  that  of  the  American  peoples.  The 
first  reliable  British  census,  taken  in  1801, 
shows  that  the  population  of  England  and 
Wales  combined  was  then  8,892,536.  Prob- 
ably the  population  of  England  in  1775  was 
not  greater  than  six  millions. 

England  at  that  time  had  her  naval  sta- 
tions in  all  parts  of  the  world.  She  had  an 
abundance  of  territory  for  her  surplus  popu- 
lation on  the  American  continent  without 
drawing  on  the  nations  to  the  south  of  Can- 
ada. She  had  bound  the  American  peoples 
to  her  with  chains  that  had  been  forged  by 
Almighty  God,  and  she  knew  that  no  link 
could  ever  be  broken.  George  descended 
from  the  throne  of  each  American  nation ;  but 
surely  he  was  forced  off  the  throne  of  none. 

Thirteen  nations,  with  a  military  strength 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          63 

of  600,000  men,  could  have  driven  away  those 
6,500  effective  men  who  occupied  Boston. 
Yet  there  are  persons  who  contend  that  a 
force  of  6,500  effective  men,  three  thousand 
miles  from  home,  was  able  to  hold  the  vast 
territories  of  thirteen  kingdoms,  in  which 
there  were  large  tracts  of  unsurveyed  lands, 
and  in  which  there  were  more  than  three  mil- 
lion Caucasian  inhabitants  besides  hosts  of 
hostile  savages !  One  person  only  in  five  hun- 
dred willing  to  resist  an  invasion  of  his 
country? 

Not  so!  Americans  were  virtuous  beyond 
all  other  peoples:  the  rabble,  1;  the  worthy, 
500.  If  the  American  peoples  were  fighting 
a  war  with  Great  Britain — or  if  they  were 
resisting  the  authority  of  their  lawful  king 
— they  permitted  thirty  thousand  men  to  hold 
three  million  men  in  check — in  check  while 
they  had  a  fighting  force  of  six  hundred  thou- 
sand men.  If  that  be  the  calibre  of  the  peo- 
ple that  comprised  this  monarchy,  then,  I 
say,  the  most  savage  of  the  tribes  of  darkest 
Africa  were  superior  to  those  American  peo- 
ples, for  no  nation  would  undertake  to  con- 
quer three  million  savages  with  thirty 
thousand  men. 


64          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

How  many  Americans  would  be  required  to 
conquer  the  Philippine  peoples?  Not  all  the 
people  of  this  vast  monarchy  may  conquer 
the  Philippine  peoples  in  all  time.  Why,  you 
say,  they  have  been  conquered!  If  so,  why 
are  they  permitted  to  buy  and  sell  human 
beings?  Why  in  the  Philippines  are  men  and 
women  sold  into  a  slavery  vastly  more  brutal 
than  ever  has  been  known  on  this  continent? 
No,  despite  warfare  that  has  been  waged  in 
our  foreign  "  possessions "  for  twelve  years, 
the  various  Philippine  nations  are  still  sover- 
eign, and  they  will  remain  sovereign  so  long 
as  the  American  monarchy  exists,  even  though 
American  soldiers  occupy  Philippine  lands 
until  the  crack  of  doom.  Turn  back  the 
hands  of  Time,  O  Despot  of  this  Monarchy, 
and  when  you  reach  the  period  of  Elizabeth, 
learn  the  lesson  that  she  taught  her  subjects 
more  than  three  hundred  years  ago:  no  peo- 
ple may  ever  be  possessed  by  any  other  peo- 
ple; no  colonies  may  ever  be  established;  the 
only  bonds  that  may  bind  humanity  are  those 
of  love. 

Highway  robbers,  the  rabble  fought  for 
themselves.  There  were  exceptions.  At  least 
one  gentleman  was  a  rebel;  the  gallant 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          65 

"Light  Horse  Harry."  But,  I  repeat,  few 
Virginians  desired  to  alter  the  government 
under  which  they  lived.  Few  hated  the 
mother  at  whose  breast  they  were  nursed. 

After  the  Treaty  of  Paris  all  worthy  per- 
sons in  the  American  nations  supported  their 
new  governments.  They  showed  that  the 
American  peoples  of  1775  were  among  the 
powerful  nations  of  the  earth,  for  those  same 
peoples  after  the  Treaty  of  Paris  continued 
to  develop  the  American  republics  until  they 
became  powerful  in  all  that  makes  a  great 
people  great.  But  do  not  mistake  the  rabble 
that  fought  their  king  for  the  patriots  who 
established  the  American  republics. 

GOVERNMENT  BY  THE  RABBLE 

Although  the  rebels  constituted  but  a  small 
proportion  of  the  population  of  any  of  the 
American  nations,  yet  they  gained  control  of 
each  of  the  American  governments.  That 
they  were  able  to  do  so  is  the  most  inexplic- 
able part  of  American  history.  In  Virginia 
the  rabble  constituted  so  small  a  part  of  the 
population,  I  am  lost  in  wonder  that  con- 
ditions could  have  been  as  they  were  in  this 
old  commonwealth. 


66          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

However,  in  more  than  one  period  of  Vir- 
ginia's life  native  Virginians  have  governed 
Virginia  in  a  manner  that  would  have  made 
carpetbaggers  blush  in  their  shame;  neverthe- 
less the  people  of  no  other  land,  in  no  other 
time,  have  been  so  noble  as  Virginians.  They 
have  seen  carpetbaggers  purchase  split-bottom 
chairs  at  sixty-seven  cents  apiece  while  act- 
ing as  private  citizens,  then  sell  the  same 
chairs  to  the  Virginian  government  while  act- 
ing as  Virginian  legislators  at  sixty-seven  dol- 
lars a  piece;  but  also  Virginians  have  seen 
Virginian  legislators  bribe  the  Virginian  rab- 
ble at  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a  head 
to  become  paper  soldiers  to  fight  on  paper 
against  their  king. 

Virginia,  according  to  the  point  of  view  of 
these  legislators,  was  invaded.  For  several 
years  the  rabble  had  drawn  good  pay, — more 
than  they  had  ever  received  before  in  their 
lives,  year  in  and  year  out, — and  their  serv- 
ice had  consisted  in  having  their  names  made 
a  part  of  the  archives  of  their  country  as  sol- 
diers serving  at  home ;  and  further  service  con- 
sisted in  wanton  crimes  committed  on  the 
persons  and  the  estates  of  noble  Virginians, 
men  and  women  who  were  the  pride  of  Vir- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          67 

ginia;  and  they  still  further  served  Virginia 
by  taking  their  pay  as  soldiers  and  their 
bounty  of  seven  hundred  and  fifty  dollars  a 
head  to  taverns,  where  they  spent  it  in  all 
sorts  of  beastly  sensualities.  Thus  had  Vir- 
ginians rewarded  these  faithful  servants. 

"Assuming  three  millions  as  a  total  num- 
ber of  our  people  at  the  beginning  of  the  Rev- 
olution, the  whole  cost  of  this  country  to 
each  man,  woman,  and  child  was  $123,  while, 
upon  the  basis  of  a  population  of  31,000,000 
in  1861,  the  total  cost  per  capita  of  the  War 
of  the  Rebellion  was  but  $96."  32 

They  were  further  rewarded: 

"  The  total  amount  paid  to  Revolutionary 
pensioners  up  to  June  30,  1876,  for  a  period 
of  service  of  six  months  and  over,  was  $46,- 
177,845.44." 33 

General  Upton  goes  on  to  tell  us  that  "  the 
total  of  pensions  in  round  numbers  amounts 
to  $80,000,000,"  basing  his  figures  on  the  re- 
port of  Bentley,  Commissioner  of  Pensions. 

I  shall  not  further  recite  the  awful 
crimes  committed  against  Virginia  by  Vir- 
ginians while  they  governed  Virginia  dur- 
ing the  rebellion.  None  of  us  for  one  mo- 

82  Upton,   p.   66.  33  Upton,  p.  65. 


68          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

ment  can  believe  that  the  mass  of  Virginians 
were  other  than  faithful  to  Virginia's  high 
traditions  and  high  ideals.  A  handful  of  rab- 
ble dominated  her — and  we  wonder.  That 
the  rabble  of  the  other  nations  were  quite  as 
bad  as  Virginians  I  have  already  intimated. 
Now  I  quote  from  a  letter  that  George  Wash- 
ington wrote  to  Joseph  Reed,  and  then  I  am 
done  with  the  character  of  the  rabble.  The 
letter  is  one  of  probably  a  hundred  similar 
letters  that  Washington  wrote  to  Congress 
and  to  his  subordinates. 

"  Such  a  dearth  of  public  spirit  and  such 
want  of  virtue,  such  stock- jobbing  and  fertil- 
ity in  all  the  low  arts  to  obtain  advantages 
of  one  kind  or  another  in  this  great  change 
of  military  arrangement,  I  never  saw  before, 
and  pray  God's  mercy  that  I  may  never  be 
witness  to  again.  What  will  be  the  end  of 
these  manoeuvre  is  beyond  my  scan.  I  trem- 
ble at  the  prospect.  We  have  been  till  this 
time  enlisting  about  three  thousand  five  hun- 
dred men.  To  engage  these  I  have  been 
obliged  to  allow  furloughs  as  far  as  fifty  men 
to  a  regiment,  and  the  officers,  I  am  per- 
suaded, indulge  as  many  more.  The  Con- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          69 

necticut  troops  will  not  be  prevailed  upon  to 
stay  longer  than  their  term,  saving  those  who 
have  enlisted  for  the  next  campaign,  and  are 
mostly  on  furlough;  and  such  a  mercenary 
spirit  pervades  the  whole  that  I  should  not 
be  at  all  surprised  at  any  disaster  that  may 
happen.  In  short,  after  the  last  of  this  month 
our  lines  will  be  so  weakened  that  the  min- 
ute men  and  militia  must  be  called  in  for 
their  defence,  and  these  being  under  no  kind 
of  government  themselves  will  destroy  the  lit- 
tle subordination  I  have  been  laboring  to  es- 
tablish, and  run  me  into  one  evil  while  I  am 
endeavoring  to  avoid  another;  but  the  less 
must  be  chosen." 34 

GOVERNMENT  UNDER  FIRST  FEDERAL  COMPACT 

At  no  time  during  the  rebellion  did  the 
American  nations  act  as  a  single  nation.  A 
treaty  was  entered  into  by  them  on  Novem- 
ber 15,  1777,  the  treaty  being  known  as  Arti- 
cles of  Confederation.  Says  Frothingham, 
the  treaty  as  amended,  and  as  accepted  by  all 
the  American  nations,  provides  that  "  <  each 
state  retains  its  sovereignty,  freedom  and  in- 

3*  Sparks,  Writings  of  Washington,  vol.  iii,  pp.  178-179, 
quoted  by  Upton,  p.  6. 


70          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

dependence' — the  first  statement  after  the 
Confederation  had  been  given  a  name." 35 
This  was  the  first  governmental  union  made 
by  the  American  nations  for  purposes  other 
than  war,  and  the  object  of  this  union  really 
was  to  wage  war  successfully.  The  nations 
parties  to  the  compact  each  continued  to  ex- 
ercise full  powers  of  sovereignty,  and  when 
they  disapproved  any  provision  of  the  con- 
federation such  provision  was  disregarded  by 
them. 

For  a  moment  let  us  look  closely  at  the 
"government"  under  the  compact  of  1777 
and  its  amendments.  In  1784  the  citizens  of 
the  western  part  of  North  Carolina  seceded 
from  that  nation  and  formed  themselves  into 
a  republic,  to  which  they  gave  the  name  State 
of  Franklin.86  A  government  was  organised, 
consisting  of  a  parliament  with  two  houses, 
a  governor,  and  a  full  judiciary  department. 
London  Carter  was;  chosen  speaker  of  the 
Senate  and  Thomas  Talbot  clerk,  while  Wil- 

35  Frothingham,  The  Rise  of  the  Republic  of  the  United 
States,  p.  561;   quoted  by  Ewing,  Northern  Rebellion  and 
Southern  Secession,  p.   14. 

36  An  excellent  history  of  the  State  of  Franklin  is  con- 
tained in  Prof.  Francis  M.  Turner's  Life  of  General  John 
Sevier,  one  of  the  authorities  that  I  consulted  in  the  prep- 
aration of  this  oration. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          71 

liam  Gage  was  chosen  speaker  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  Thomas  Chapman*  clerk; 
General  John  Sevier  was  elected  governor, 
and  the  Supreme  Court  was  presided  over 
by  three  judges.  A  constitution  was  adopted, 
and  for  several  years  the  government  was  ef- 
fectively administered,  until  March,  1788, 
when  Sevier's  term  of  office  expired.  During 
the  life  of  this  little  republic  it  exercised  all 
the  functions  of  sovereignty,  including  the 
waging  of  civil  war.  Civil  strife  only  was  the 
cause  of  her  destruction.  In  time  the  re- 
public became  the  present  state  of  Tennessee. 

No  matter  what  view  one  may  take  of  the 
strife  known  as  the  Revolutionary  War, — 
whether  the  American  nations  fought  to  re- 
sist powers  of  sovereignty  that  England  at- 
tempted to  exercise  over  them,  whether  they 
fought  to  change  their  nations  from  king- 
doms to  republics,  or  whether  they  fought  to 
establish  nations, — one  must  admit  that  they 
were  sovereignties  the  moment  that  the  Treaty 
of  Paris  became  effective. 

Let  us  consider  one  of  the  provisions  of 
that  treaty: 

"His  Britannic  Majesty  acknowledges  that 


72          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

said  United  States,  viz:  New  Hampshire, 
Massachusetts  Bay,  Khode  Island  and  Provi- 
dence Plantations,  Connecticut,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  Mary- 
land, Virginia,  North  Carolina,  South  Caro- 
lina, and  Georgia,  to  be  Free  Sovereign,  and 
Independent  States;  that  he  treats  with  them 
as  such."37 

Thus  the  king  common  to  Great  Britain 
and  all  the  American  nations, — and  to  other 
nations,  such  as  Canada, — acting  as  the 
head  of  the  British  Government,  acknowl- 
edged the  independence  of  each  of  the  Ameri- 
can nations — not  the  independence  of  those 
nations  confederally,  but  the  independence 
of  those  nations  individually,  as  separate  po- 
litical entities.  At  the  same  time  the  Ameri- 
can nations  ceased  to  be  kingdoms. 

Thus  we  find  that  the  ^Revolutionary  War 
never  affected  the  sovereignty  of  any  one  of 
the  American  countries. 

87  Art.  i,  Treaty  of  Paris,  September  3,  1783. 


s 


II 

THE  AMEKICAN  EEPUBLICS 
FROM  1783  TO  1865 

THE  treaty  known  as  Articles  of  Confedera- 
tion was  the  only  compact  that  existed  be- 
tween the  American  nations  from  1777  until 
the  treaty  of  1788  went  into  effect. 

That  the  treaty  of  1788  and  its  amend- 
ments was  not  nearly  perfect  as  an  in- 
strument by  which  the  nations  expressed 
their  views  of  the  confederation  that  they 
had  formed,  is  shown  by  the  trouble  that 
it  caused  from  the  time  that  it  was  adopted 
until  the  present  day.  That  document  has 
been  the  cause  of  more  litigation  than  any 
other  instrument  ever  written.  Tens  of  thou- 
sands of  human  beings  have  lost  their  lives 
in  trying  to  interpret  it.  Not  only  was  it 
imperfect  as  an  agreement,  but  it  was  the 
means  of  defeating  the  object  that  the  par- 
ties to  it  wished  to  attain.  While  I  shall 
not  attempt  to  point  to  all  its  defects,  I  shall 
ask  you  to  consider  these  few: 

73 


74          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

A  powerful  blow  was  dealt  to  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  American  nations  when  the  com- 
pact permitted  the  federal  power  to  levy  any 
kind  of  tax.  Nor  should  any  nation  permit 
a  holding  company  to  make  her  money,  change 
her  fiscal  system  at  will,  nor  in  any  other 
way  to  interfere  with  her  domestic  affairs. 
No  nation  should  permit  a  holding  company 
to  organise  and  to  control  her  militia. 

Here  I  stop  recounting  the  defects  of  the 
treaty  that  was  intended  to  regulate  the  Amer- 
ican nations  in  their  intercourse  with  one  an- 
other and  with  other  nations,  for  I  should  take 
your  time  unnecessarily  were  I  able  to  point 
out  all  the  defects  that  mar  a  compact  that 
might  have  been  perfect.  Let  me  say,  however, 
that  at  least  one  Virginian  apparently  saw  all 
the  defects  of  that  compact.  I  refer  to  Pat- 
rick Henry,  the  greatest  statesman  of  his 
period,  and  among  the  great  statesmen  of  all 
time. 

"Congress,"  said  he,  "by  the  power  of  tax- 
ation— by  that  of  raising  an  army,  and  by 
their  control  over  the  militia,  have  the  sword 
in  one  hand,  and  the  purse  in  the  other. 
Shall  we  be  safe  without  either?"38  So 

ss  William  Wirt,  Patrick  Henry:  Life,  Correspondence 
and  Speeches,  3  vols.,  vol.  3,  p.  495. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          75 

spoke  that  great  statesman  June  9,  1788;  and 
then  he  went  on  to  say :  "  Let  him  candidly 
tell  me,  where  and  when  did  freedom  exist 
when  the  sword  and  purse  were  given  up 
from  the  people?  Unless  a  miracle  in  human 
affairs  interposed,  no  nation  ever  retained  its 
liberty  after  the  loss  of  the  sword  and 
purse."  39  There  were  Virginians  other  than 
Patrick  Henry  who  saw  many  of  the  defects 
of  the  compact. 

There  were  statesmen  in  all  the  American 
nations  that  were  in  sympathy  with  Patrick 
Henry's  views.  Samuel  Adams  in  a  letter 
to  Eichard  Henry  Lee  said,  "  I  stumble  at  the 
threshold."  Evidently  he  viewed  the  instru- 
ment with  misgivings. 

TREATY   OF    1788   AS   VIEWED    BY    THE    NATIONS 

Few  of  the  American  nations,  if  any,  were 
willing  to  become  parties  to  the  written  agree- 
ment until  they  had  been  assured  that  it 
should  not  be  construed  to  affect  their  sover- 
eignty in  the  least.  They  were  willing  to  del- 
egate specified  powers  to  a  holding  company, 
— such  as  the  federal  agents  would  make, — 
for  each  nation  would  have  the  right  to  take 

s»Wirt,   vol.   3,   p.   495. 


76          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

back  the  powers  so  delegated.  The  relations 
of  each  country  to  the  federal  agents  were 
to  be  similar  to  those  that  exist  between 
client  and  lawyer.  Each  nation  intended 
carefully  to  guard  her  rights  under  the  treaty 
as  well  as  her  sovereignty. 

In  the  constitutional  convention  that  as- 
sembled in  Philadelphia  in  1787,  one  of  the 
delegates  from  Delaware  declared  that  his 
nation  would  form  an  alliance  with  some 
European  power  rather  than  enter  into1  a 
union  that  would  empower  stronger  nations 
to  treat  her  unfairly. 

Unwilling  to  jeopardise  her  sovereignty, 
Massachusetts  had  refused  to  become  a  party 
to  the  treaty  of  1788  unless  that  agreement 
should  be  amended  in  this:  "First,  That  it 
be  explicitly  declared  that  all  Powers  not  ex- 
pressly delegated  by  the  aforesaid  Constitu- 
tion are  reserved  to  the  several  States  to  be 
by  them  exercised."40  The  "amendments  & 
alterations"  that  were  demanded  by  Massa- 
chusetts were  held  to  be  necessary  "to  re- 
move fears  &  quiet  apprehensions  of  many  of 
the  good  people  of  this  Commonwealth  & 

40  Documentary  History  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  vol.  ii,  p.  94. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          77 

more  effectually  guard  against  an  undue  ad- 
ministration of  the  Federal  Government."41 

New  York  became  a  party  to  the  compact 
after  she  had  made  known  her  interpretation 
of  the  agreement  in  the  following  language: 
"  That  the  Powers  of  Government  may  be  re- 
sumed by  the  People,  whensoever  it  shall  be 
necessary  to  their  Happiness;  that  every 
Power,  Jurisdiction  and  right,  which  is  not 
by  the  said  Constitution  clearly  delegated 
to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  or  the 
departments  of  the  Government  thereof,  re- 
mains to  the  People  of  the  several  States,  or 
to  their  respective  State  Governments  to 
whom  they  may  have  granted  the  same;  And 
that  those  clauses  in  the  said  Constitution, 
which  declare,  that  Congress  shall  not  have 
or  exercise  certain  Powers,  do  not  imply  that 
Congress  is  entitled  to  any  Powers  not  given 
by  the  said  Constitution;  but  such  Clauses 
are  to  be  construed  either  as  exceptions  to 
certain  specified  Powers,  or  as  inserted 
merely  for  greater  caution."42 

Khode  Island,  one  of  the  nations  that  re- 
fused to  enter  into  the  compact,  in  time  of- 

« Ibid.,  p.  93. 

*2  Documentary  History  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  vol.  ii,  p.  94. 


78          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

fered  to  enter  into  trade  relations  with  her 
sister  nations,  and  "  at  the  request  and  in  be- 
half of  the  General  Assembly  "  her  governor 
forwarded  "  To  the  President,  the  Senate, 
and  the  House  of  Representatives  of  the 
eleven  United  States  of  America  "  her  "  dis- 
position to  cultivate  mutual  harmony  and 
friendly  intercourse."  The  papers  were  of- 
ficially labeled  "  Rhode  Island  desires  to 
maintain  friendly  relations  with  the  United 
States,"  and  bearing  that  label  were  laid  be- 
fore the  federal  congress  by  Washington  Sep- 
tember 26,  1789.  Rhode  Island  continued  to 
exercise  her  sovereign  rights  unmolested  un- 
til May  29,  1790,  when  she  became  a  party 
to  the  treaty  between  the  American  nations, 
at  her  request, — but  not  before  she  had  im- 
posed the  following  conditions:  "That  the 
powers  of  government  may  be  resumed  by  the 
people  whenever  it  shall  become  necessary 
to  their  happiness: — That  the  rights  of  the 
States  respectively,  to  nominate  and  appoint 
all  State  Officers,  and  every  other  power, 
jurisdiction  and  right,  which  is  not  by  the 
said  constitution  clearly  delegated  to  the 
Congress  of  the  United  States  or  to  the  de- 
partments of  government  thereof,  remain  to 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          79 

the  people  of  the  several  states,  or  their  re- 
spective State  Governments  to  whom  they 
may  have  granted  the  same."  *3 

No  nation  made  known  her  interpretation 
of  the  treaty  of  1788  in  clearer  terms  than 
did  Virginia,  for  she  published  to  the  world 
that  the  powers  that  she  intended  to  delegate 
to  the  federal  government  might  be  'taken 
back  by  her  people  "  whenever  the  same  shall 
be  perverted  to  their  injury  or  oppression 
and  every  power  not  granted  remains  with 
them  at  their  will."  44  The  Constitution,  she 
said,  would  have  to  contain  the  following 
words,  or  words  of  similar  purport :  "  That 
each  state  in  the  Union  shall,  respectively, 
retain  every  power,  jurisdiction  and  right 
which  is  not  by  this  Constitution  delegated 
to  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  or  to 
the  Departments  of  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment." 

When  assured  that  the  treaty  would  be  al- 
tered to  meet  their  requirements,  the  nations 
that  had  refused  to  enter  the  union  became 
parties  to  the  compact,  which  was  later 

43  Documentary  History  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States,  vol.  ii,  p.  311. 

*4  David  L.  Pulliam,  Constitutional  Laws  of  Virginia, 
pp.  39-45. 


80          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

amended  in  language  that  is  not  open  to 
misinterpretation:  "The  powers  not  dele- 
gated to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitu- 
tion, nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are 
reserved  to  the  States  respectively,  or  to  the 
people."  45 

TREATY  OF  1788  AS  VIEWED  BY  STATESMEN 

Of  the  five  men  that  Fiske  says  moulded 
the  confederation  of  states,  Washington,  Jef- 
ferson, and  Madison  held  that  the  Constitu- 
tion was  a  compact  between  the  states,  and 
that  each  state  was  an  independent  sover- 
eignty. 

In  a  letter  to  Madison,  dated  August  3, 
1778,  Washington  used  the  following  words: 
"  .  .  .  till  the  States  begin  to  act  under  the 
new  compact."  Time  and  again  Washington 
said  that  the  states  were  independent  nations, 
their  sovereignty  unaffected  by  the  treaty  to 
which  they  were  parties. 

Said  Madison  in  1799:  "The  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  was  framed  by  the  sanc- 
tion of  the  States,  given  by  each  in  its  sover- 
eign capacity."46  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis,  in  his 

« Amendments  to  the   Constitution,   Art.  x. 
*6  Edward  Payson  Powell,  Nullification  and  Secession  in 
the   United  States,  p.   102. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          81 

splendid  book,  The  Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Con- 
federate Government,  reports  that  Madison 
also  said,  "The  people — but  not  the  people 
as  composing  one  great  body;  but  the  people 
as  composing  thirteen  sovereignties,"  made 
the  compact  of  1788  and  its  amendments. 

That  the  sovereignty  of  no  one  of  the  na- 
tions was  affected  by  the  federal  union  Jef- 
ferson frequently  contended.  Gordy  reports: 
"  Jefferson's  opinion  began  as  follows :  ( I 
consider  the  foundation  of  the  Constitution 
as  laid  on  this  ground — that  all  powers  not 
delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Consti- 
tution or  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States  are 
reserved  to  the  States  or  to  the  people.  To 
take  a  single  step  beyond  the  boundaries  thus 
specially  drawn  around  the  powers  of  con- 
gress, is  to  take  possession  of  a  boundless 
field  of  power  no  longer  susceptible  of  any 
definition/  " 47 

President  Monroe  wrote  that  two  proposi- 
tions were  beyond  dispute :  "  The  first  is,  that 
in  wresting  the  power,  or  what  is  called  the 
sovereignty,  from  the  crown,  it  passed  di- 
rectly to  the  people.  The  second,  that  it 

*7J.  p.  Gordy,  A  History  of  Political  Parties  in  the 
United  States,  p.  135. 


82          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

passed  directly  to  the  people  of  each  colony, 
and  not  to  the  people  of  all  the  colonies  in 
the  aggregate — to  thirteen  distinct  communi- 
ties, and  not  to  one." 48 

In  Ware  vs.  Hylton  (3  Dallas,  224)  Justice 
Chase,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  and  one  of  the  signers  of  the  Declara- 
tion of  Independence,  in  his  opinion  said: 
"  I  consider  this  a  declaration,  not  that  the 
united  colonies,  jointly,  in  a  collective  capac- 
ity, were  independent  states,  &c.,  but  that 
each  of  them  was  a  sovereign  and  independ- 
ent state,  that  is,  that  each  of  them  had  a 
right  to  govern  itself  by  its  own  authority 
and  its  own  laws,  without  any  control  from 
any  other  power  on  earth." 

Judson  A.  Landon,  referring  to  the  Declar- 
ation of  Independence,  says :  "  The  thought 
in  the  mind  of  the  framers  no  doubt  was  that 
every  colony  was  free  and  independent  of  the 
king.  There  was  no  need  to  say  independent 
of  each  other;  they  had  always  been  so,  and 
the  idea  of  erecting  a  common,  central  gov- 
ernment out  of  all,  was  not  yet  suggested."  *9 


48  Niles,  Register,  vol.  xxii,  p.  366. 

*e  Judson  A.  Landon,  The  Constitutional  History  and 
Government  of  the  United  States,  p.  59 ;  quoted  by  Ewing, 
Northern  Rebellion  and  Southern  Secession,  p.  12. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          83 

As  a  union  is  a  combination  that  consists 
of  two  or  more  entities,  either  an  American 
union  or  an  American  nation  was  formed 
when  the  Constitution  was  adopted.  Bear 
this  in  mind,  if  you  please,  you  who  spell 
union  with  a  big  U,  and  who  seem  to  think 
that  "  union  "  means  "  nation." 

Lincoln  at  the  time  of  his  first  inaugural 
address  evidently  knew  the  meaning  of  "un- 
ion "  as  well  as  "  nation."  In  his  first  in- 
augural address  "  union "  appears  twenty 
times,  but  only  once  was  the  word  "  nation  " 
used.  Three  years  later,  in  his  Gettysburg 
oration,  the  word  "  union  "  is  not  mentioned, 
but  the  word  "  nation "  is  used  five  times. 
Such  is  the  influence  of  power.  Indeed 
should  the  warning  of  Patrick  Henry  be 
heeded:  "If  your  American  chief  be  a  man 
of  ambition,  and  abilities,  how  easy  it  is  for 
him  to  render  himself  absolute !  "50 

Possibly  no  human  being  who  has  studied 
the  affairs  of  men  ever  believed  that  a  sover- 
eign entity  ever  willingly  surrendered  her 
powers.  Is  it  thinkable  that  Virginia,  a  na- 
tion two  hundred  years  old,  with  her  tradi- 
tions jealously  guarded  by  her,  ever  willingly 

vol.  3,  p.  452. 


84          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

laid  down  her  life,  to  enter  the  American  hell? 
One  with  the  intelligence  of  a  boy  of  ten  may 
not  read  the  reports  of  the  debates  on  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  without  reaching  the  conclusion  that 
the  parties  to  that  compact  never  intended  to 
create  a  nation. 

Here  I  yield  to  the  temptation  to  point  out 
one  more  defect  in  the  agreement  between  the 
American  sovereignties.  The  name  of  the 
holding  company  never  should  have  been  The 
United  States  of  America;  but  that  name 
should  have  been  The  American  States  United. 
Possibly,  for  the  benefit  of  the  late  Daniel 
Webster  and  many  of  those  of  his  period  and 
of  ours,  a  dictionary  should  have  been  made 
a  part  of  the  treaty  of  1788.  Such  words  as 
"  state "  and  "  nation  "  and  "  union  "  and 
"  sovereignty  "  and  "  delegate  "  and  "  re- 
serve "  and  "  power "  should  have  been  de- 
fined. True,  everybody  knows  the  meaning  of 
those  words  as  ordinarily  used;  but  as  used 
in  the  agreement  of  confederation  they  mean 
everything — or  nothing — to  nationalists. 

GOVERNMENT   UNDER   THE   TREATY   OF   1788 

The  domestic  affairs  of  the  American  na- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          85 

tions  were  not  materially  affected  by  the  hold- 
ing company  immediately  after  their  compact 
became  operative.  Each  nation  went  about 
her  own  affairs.  As  we  have  already  seen, 
Virginia  had  a  splendid  military  system  as 
long  ago  as  1624.  She  continued  to  perfect 
this  organisation  after  she  became  a  party  to 
the  compact  of  confederation.  Says  Mr.  Armi- 
stead  Gordon,  now  rector  of  the  University  of 
Virginia,  in  his  admirable  Life  of  General 
Fitzhugh  Gordon :  "  Each  county  raised  a  cer- 
tain number  of  troops,  and  because  it  was  not 
convenient  for  men  to  go  many  miles  from 
home  in  assembling  for  purposes  of  drill,  the 
county  was  subdivided  into  military  districts, 
each  with  its  company,  according  to  the  rules 
laid  down  by  the  governor."  This  system 
therefore  was  not  unlike  that  which  came  into 
being  way  back  in  1624. 

"  In  1804  the  legislature  chartered  the  Bank 
of  Virginia  and  its  branches,  and  this  was  the 
beginning  of  the  Virginia  banking  system  that 
by  1860  had  grown  and  developed  into  the 
most  perfect  banking  system  that  the  world 
has  ever  seen."51 

81  William  L.  Royall,  A  History  of  Virginia  Bank*  and 
Banking  Prior  to  the  CwU  War,  p.  0. 


86          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

I  again  refer  to  the  rise  of  sectionalism  in 
Virginia.  From  an  early  part  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  there  were  sections  within  sec- 
tions, and  by  1840  the  differences  between 
eastern  Virginia  and  western  had  become 
acute.  In  1840  western  Virginians  were 
clamouring  for  more  liberal  representation  in 
the  Virginian  House  and  Senate,  and  by  1860 
civil  war  between  eastern  Virginia  and  west- 
ern was  threatened.  I  mention  this  as  an  in- 
cident in  the  national  development  of  the  old 
commonwealth.  Some  day  I  shall  tell  you  a 
great  deal  concerning  the  war  that  was  about 
to  be  fought  between  eastern  Virginia  and 
western  at  the  time  the  War  between  the 
States  deprived  Virginians  of  the  joy  of  what 
would  have  been  an  extremely  interesting 
fight. 

Nbt  long  did  the  American  nations  live 
peaceably  under  their  compact.  The  rabble, 
greatly  encouraged  by  the  course  events  had 
taken,  sought  to  make  further  mischief.  A 
brigand  never  becomes  a  good  citizen.  The 
rabble,  still  the  rabble,  still  highway  robbers, 
would  continue  to  prey  upon  society.  In  the 
name  of  humanity  the  rabble  had  overthrown 
a  kingdom,  that  a  republic  might  be  estab- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          87 

lished;  in  the  name  of  humanity  the  rabble 
now  intended  to  overthrow  a  republic,  that  a 
kingdom  might  be  established.  Alexander 
Hamilton,  a  leader  of  the  rabble  that  had 
fought  one  king,  was  now  the  leader  of  the 
rabble  that  fought  for  a  new  king.  Again 
the  highwaymen  were  successful.  The  treaty 
was  their  work.  Now  for  another  kingdom! 

GOVERNMENT    UNDER    THE    SUPREME    COURT    OF 
THE    UNITED   STATES 

Through  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Fontaine  T. 
Fox,  of  the  Louisville  bar,  I  am  able  to  quote 
from  his  valuable  book,  A  Study  in  Alexander 
Hamilton,  which  is  now  in  press.  As  the  book 
is  not  yet  in  pages,  I  am  unable  to  refer  to 
page  numbers. 

Says  Mr.  Fox,  "  Alexander  Hamilton  begat 
the  Federal  party,  the  Federal  party  begat  the 
Whig  party,  the  Whig  party  begat  the  Eepub- 
lican  party,  and  these  three  parties  were  one 
and  the  same  yesterday,  they  are  one  and  the 
same  to-day,  and  they  will  be  one  and  the  same 
for  ever  and  for  ever.  Hamilton's  sole  object 
was  to  create  a  government  outside  the  fed- 
eral constitution,  and  to-day  that  is  the  chief 
object  of  the  Republican  party.  This  new 


88          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

government  was  to  be  made  out  of  the  doctrine 
of  '  implied  powers.'  Under  the  constructive 
decisions  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States,  which  always  has  been  merely  the  ex- 
ponent of  Hamilton's  political  opinions,  as  it 
is  to-day  the  exponent  of  those  opinions,  no 
restrictions  limit  the  kind  of  government  that 
may  be  established  under  the  doctrine  of  im- 
plied powers.  John  Marshall  was  the  judicial 
exponent  of  Alexander  Hamilton — no  more, 
no  less." 

Yet  time  was  when  John  Marshall  was  faith- 
ful to  the  nation  that  gave  him  birth.  That 
was  the  time  when  he  had  not  dreamed  his 
dreams  of  empire,  the  time  when  he  held  that 
the  states  were  nations.  During  the  debate 
on  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  he  used 
the  following  words:  "Can  they  [Congress] 
go  beyond  the  delegated  powers?  If  they  were 
to  make  a  law  not  warranted  by  any  of  the 
powers  enumerated,  it  would  be  considered  by 
the  judges  [Supreme  Court]  as  an  infringe- 
ment of  the  Constitution  which  they  are  to 
guard.  .  .  .  They  would  declare  it  void."52 

But,  as  Mr.  Fox  says :  "  The  American  peo- 
ples through  the  doctrine  of  implied  powers 

52  Allan  Bowie  Magruder,  John  Marshall,  p.  82. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          89 

are  living  not  under  the  federal  constitution, 
but  under  the  government  of  the  federal  su- 
preme court — a  government  created  out  of  its 
own  imagination,  in  defiance  of  the  constitu- 
tion which  the  judicial  oath  required  it  to 
support  and  defend.  And  that  court  is  to- 
day, as  it  never  has  ceased  to  be,  the  exponent 
of  Alexander  Hamilton's  political  principles, 
through  John  Marshall's  judicial  decisions, 
which  have  been  accepted  and  followed  as  in- 
fallible." 

Jefferson  was  alarmed  by  the  inroads  made 
upon  the  rights  of  the  nations  by  the  supreme 
federal  court.  In  his  first  inaugural  address 
he  said:  "I  deem  as  an  essential  principle 
of  our  government,  the  support  of  the  State 
governments  in  their  rights,  as  the  most  com- 
petent administrations  for  our  domestic  con- 
cerns and  the  surest  bulwarks  against  anti- 
republican  tendencies."  53  No  wonder  that  the 
Sage  of  Monticello  "wrote  a  spiteful  letter 
about  Marshall  which  made  the  latter  angry, 
and  he  went  home  to  Virginia  and  ran  for 
Congress  against  the  opposition  of  Jefferson, 
who  called  him  '  a  monarchist  and  an  unprin- 
cipled impudent  Federal  bulldog.' " 

Statesman's  Manual,  vol.  i,  p.  151. 


90          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

"Loose  construction  had  come  to  mean  the 
right  of  the  federal  government  to  do  what- 
ever was  forbidden  by  the  Constitution  pro- 
vided the  act  was  deemed  to  be  for  the  gen- 
eral good."  5* 

Again  I  quote  from  the  admirable  book  by 
Mr.  Fox:  "How  to  control  if  not  to  get  rid 
of  this  principle  [the  personality  of  man]  un- 
der the  federal  constitution  was  the  moral 
treason  of  Alexander  Hamilton  and  John  Mar- 
shall. To  create  a  corporation  under  the  old 
theory  was  an  act  of  sovereignty,  hence  Hamil- 
ton advocated  a  bank,  although  he  knew  per- 
sonally that  the  power  to  organise  a  bank 
expressly  had  been  denied  to  the  federal  gov- 
ernment. John  Marshall  announced  that  a 
charter  passed  by  a  state  government  was  a 
contract  and  therefore  was  protected  by  the 
federal  constitution.  The  next  step  was  to  de- 
cide that  the  federal  congress  had  the  implied 
power  to  create  a  corporation,  and  Marshall 
did  so  decide.  The  work  was  accomplished. 
The  treasonable  design  of  Alexander  Hamil- 
ton and  John  Marshall  was  a  judicial  success, 
and  the  grand  work  of  the  American  Revolu- 
tion was  undone,  and  once  more  in  defiance 

B*  William  MacDonald,  Jacksonian  Democracy,  p.  77. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          91 

of  God  and  human  rights,  Man  was  sunk  to  a 
subject  and  government  with  its  divine  right 
to  reign  was  announced  to  the  world.  Conse- 
quently the  old  conflict  that  has  surged 
through  all  human  history— the  conflict  be- 
tween freedom  and  tyranny — has  not  yet  been 
settled." 

Under  the  "elastic"  clause  of  the  Consti- 
tution of  the  United  States  Hamilton  and 
Marshall  constructed  a  government.  Let  us 
take  a  look  at  that  clause,  well  nicknamed. 
"  To  make  all  laws  which  shall  be  necessary 
and  proper  for  carrying  into  execution  the 
foregoing  powers,  and  all  other  powers  vested 
by  this  constitution  in  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  any  department  or  of- 
fice therefore."65  Great  God,  that  statesmen 
ever  should  have  permitted  that  clause  to  have 
become  a  part  of  the  treaty! 

The  doctrine  of  "  implied  powers "  was  di- 
rectly denied  to  congress  by  the  compact,  but 
was  decided  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  to  have  been  granted  by  im- 
plication. In  effect,  says  the  Supreme  Court 
of  the  United  States,  the  compact  between  the 

55  Art.  i,  sec.  viii,  clause  18,  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 


92          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

American  nations  makes  this  court  a  despotic 
monarch  and  makes  a  monarchy  of  these  na- 
tions. During  the  session  of  1820-1821  the 
Virginian  House  of  Delegates  by  a  majority 
of  138  protested  against  the  assumption  of 
jurisdiction  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  in  the  case  of  Cohens  vs.  Vir- 
ginia : 

"  Resolved,  That  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  have  no  rightful  authority  un- 
der the  Constitution,  to  examine  and  correct 
the  judgment  for  which  the  Commonwealth 
of  Virginia  has  been  '  cited  and  admonished 
to  be  and  appear  at  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,'  and  that  the  General  Assem- 
bly do  hereby  enter  their  most  solemn  protest 
against  the  jurisdiction  of  that  Court  over  the 
matter." 

"  This  pronunciamento  declared  the  attitude 
of  the  Commonwealth  towards  what  it  re- 
garded as  an  unwarranted  assumption  of 
jurisdiction  over  a  sovereign  State  by  the  Su- 
preme Court  of  the  United  States,  then  pre- 
sided over  by  Chief  Justice  Marshall.  The 
Cohens  were  indicted  by  the  State  Court  at 
Norfolk  for  a  violation  of  the  State  anti-lot- 
tery statute.  The  defendants  claimed  the  pro- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          93 

tection  of  an  act  of  Congress  relating  to  the 
District  of  Columbia.  Judgment  went  against 
them;  and  being  without  right  of  appeal  to 
any  Virginia  court,  they  appealed  directly  to 
the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States." 56 

Too  much  of  your  time  would  be  taken  were 
I  to  further  enlarge  upon  the  powers  that  the 
Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  exercised 
while  trying  to  make  a  monarchy  out  of  the 
American  sovereignties.  Later  I  shall  refer 
to  the  court,  and  then  I  shall  tell  you  how  it 
became  one  of  the  executive  departments  of 
the  American  despot. 

THE  SOUTHERN  NATIONS  DEFEND  THEIR 
SOVEREIGNTY 

Congress  neglected  few  opportunities  to  lay 
the  foundation  upon  which  was  constructed 
the  temple  erected  to  despotism.  Seldom  did 
representatives  of  the  southern  nations  mem- 
bers of  Congress  fail  to  do  all  in  their  power 
to  prevent  encroachment  on  the  rights  of  the 
sovereignties  that  they  represented.  I  shall 
not  enter  upon  the  details  of  the  battles  that 

5«Armistead  C.  Gordon,  William  Fitzhugh  Gordon, 
1787-1858,  p.  128. 


94          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

were  waged  in  Washington.  I  shall  merely 
mention  a  few  of  the  fights. 

The  position  of  Virginia  with  respect  to  the 
Missouri  Compromise  was  couched  in  lan- 
guage that  could  not  be  mistaken.  I  quote 
from  the  resolutions  adopted  by  her  parlia- 
ment: 

"  1.  That  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
have  no  power  under  the  Federal  Constitu- 
tion to  dictate  to  the  people  of  the  Missouri 
territory  what  principles  shall  govern  them 
in  the  formation  of  their  constitution  or  sys- 
tem of  government  or  in  the  adoption  of  regu- 
lations respecting  their  property,  but  are  sim- 
ply bound  to  guarantee  to  them  (in  common 
with  the  other  States)  a  republican  form  of 
government. 

"  2.  That  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
are  bound  in  good  faith  by  the  treaty  of  ces- 
sion of  1805  to  admit  the  good  people  of  the 
Missouri  Territory  into  the  Union  upon  equal 
terms  with  the  existing  States. 

"3.  That  the  General  Assembly  of  Virginia 
will  support  the  good  people  of  Missouri  in 
their  just  rights  to  admission  into  the  Union, 
and  will  cooperate  with  them  in  resisting  with 
manly  fortitude  any  attempt  which  Congress 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          95 

may  make  to  impose  restraints  or  restrictions, 
as  the  price  of  their  admission,  not  authorised 
by  the  great  principles  of  the  Constitution, 
and  in  violation  of  their  rights,  liberty  and 
happiness. 

"4.  That  the  Senators  from  this  State  in 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States  be  in- 
structed, and  the  representatives  requested,  to 
use  their  best  efforts  in  procuring  the  admis- 
sion of  the  State  of  Missouri  into  the  Union, 
upon  the  principles  contained  in  the  forego- 
ing resolutions,  and  in  resisting  any  attempt 
which  shall  be  made  in  Congress  to  impose 
conditions  upon  the  people  of  Missouri  not 
warranted  by  the  treaty  of  cession  and  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States." 57 

In  a  letter  to  General  William  F.  Gordon, 
dated  January  1,  1826,  Jefferson  said :  "  It 
is  but  too  evident  that  the  branches  of  our 
foreign  department  of  government,  executive, 
judiciary,  and  legislative,  are  in  combination 
to  usurp  the  powers  of  the  domestic  branch 
also  reserved  to  the  States,  and  consolidate 
themselves  into  a  single  government  without 
limitation  of  powers.  I  will  not  trouble  you 
with  details  of  the  instances,  which  are  thread- 

«7  Gordon,  p.   125-6. 


96          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

bare  and  unheeded.  The  only  question  is, 
what  is  to  be  done?  Shall  we  give  up  the 
ship?  No,  by  heavens,  while  a  hand  remains 
able  to  keep  the  deck!  Shall  we,  with  the 
hot-headed  Georgian,  stand  at  once  to  our 
arms?  Not  yet,  nor  until  the  evil,  the  only 
greater  one  than  separation,  shall  be  all  but 
upon  us,  that  of  living  under  a  government  of 
discretion.  Between  these  alternatives  there 
can  be  no  hesitation."  58 

Congress  and  the  Supreme  Court  did  not 
intend  to  leave  to  the  nations  a  single  field  of 
human  endeavour.  But  without  surcease  Vir- 
ginia resisted  the  attacks  that  were  made  on 
her  sovereignty.  Her  House  of  Delegates 
February  28,  1826,  adopted  a  resolution 
couched  in  the  following  language: 

"That  the  Congress  of  the  United  States 
does  not  possess  the  power,  under  the  Con- 
stitution, to  adopt  a  general  system  of  internal 
improvements  in  the  States,  as  a  national 
measure;"  and  "that  the:  appropriation  by 
the  Congress  of  the  United  States  to  construct 
roads  and  canals  in  the  States  is  a  violation  of 
the  Constitution." 

On  March  2,  1827,  the  general  assembly  of 
Virginia  adopted  the  following  resolutions : 

"Gordon,  p.   133. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          97 

"  The  General  Assembly  of  Virginia,  actu- 
ated as  it  always  has  been  by  the  most  sincere 
disposition  for  the  preservation  of  the  Union 
of  these  States,  believing  that  the  Union  can 
only  be  preserved  by  keeping  the  General  and 
State  governments  within  their  respective 
spheres  of  action  as  marked  out  by  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States;  being  also  sin- 
cerely desirous  that  the  General  Government 
should  be  protected  in  the  full  and  free  exer- 
cise of  all  the  specified  powers  granted  to  it 
by  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  and 
being  at  the  same  time  deeply  impressed  with 
a  sense  of  its  own  duty  to  preserve  unimpaired 
all  the  rights  of  the  people  and  government  of 
this  State  conferred  upon  it  by  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  State  and  of  the  United  States, 
finds  itself  reluctantly  constrained  to  enter 
its  most  solemn  protest  against  the  usurpa- 
tions of  the  General  Government,  as  described 
in  the  Report  of  the  Committee. 

"Therefore,  Eesolved  That  the  General  As- 
sembly in  behalf  of  the  people  and  govern- 
ment of  this  State,  does  hereby  most  solemnly 
protest  against  the  claim  or  exercise  of  any 
power  whatever  on  the  part  of  the  General 
Government  to  make  internal  improvements 


98          The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

within  the  limits  and  jurisdiction  of  the  sev- 
eral States,  and  particularly  within  the  limits 
of  the  State  of  Virginia — and  also  against  the 
claim  or  exercise  of  any  power  whatever  as- 
serting or  involving  a  jurisdiction  over  any 
part  of  the  territory  within  the  limits  of  this 
State,  except  over  the  objects  and  in  the  mode 
specified  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

"Kesolved,  In  like  manner  that  this  Gen- 
eral Assembly  does  most  solemnly  protest 
against  the  claim  or  exercise  of  any  power 
whatever  on  the  part  of  the  General  Govern- 
ment to  protect  domestic  manufactures,  the 
protection  of  manufactures  not  being  among 
the  grants  of  power  to  the  government  speci- 
fied in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States; 
and  also  against  the  operation  of  the  Act  of 
Congress,  passed  May  22d,  1824,  entited  'An 
Act  to  amend  the  several  acts  imposing  duties 
or  imports/  generally  called  the  Tariff  law, 
which  vary  the  distributions  of  the  proceeds 
of  the  labor  of  the  community  in  such  a  man- 
ner as  to  transfer  property  from  one  portion 
of  the  United  States  to  another,  and  to  take 
private  property  from  the  owner  for  the  bene- 
fit of  another  person  not  rendering  public  serv- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States          99 

ice — as  unconstitutional,  unwise,  unjust,  un- 
equal and  oppressive."  59 

The  resolutions  .adopted  by  the  Virginian 
House  in  February,  1829,  show  that  Virgin- 
ians had  nullification  in  mind  as  well  as  had 
South  Carolinians.  The  latter,  you  will  recall, 
did  not  pass  their  ordinance  of  nullification 
until  more  than  two  years  later.  I  quote 
from  the  resolutions: 

"1.  That  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States,  being  a  federative  compact  between 
sovereign  States  in  construing  which  no  com- 
mon arbiter  is  known,  each  State  has  the 
right  to  construe  the  compact  for  itself. 

«2.  *    *     * 

"3.  That  this  General  Assembly  of  Vir- 
ginia, actuated  by  the  desire  of  guarding  the 
Constitution  from  all  violation;  anxious  to 
preserve  and  perpetuate  the  Union,  and  to 
execute  with  fidelity  the  trust  reposed  in  it 
by  the  people  as  one  of  the  high  contracting 
parties,  feels  itself  bound  to  declare,  and  it 
hereby  most  solemnly  declares,  its  deliberate 
conviction  that  the  acts  of  Congress,  usually 
denominated  the  Tariff  laws,  passed  avowedly 
for  the  protection  of  domestic  manufactures, 

6»  Gordon,  pp.  136-7. 


100        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

are  not  authorized  by  the  plain  construction, 
true  intent,  and  meaning  of  the  Constitution. 
Also,  That  the  said  acts  are  partial  in  their 
operation,  impolitic,  and  oppressive  to  a  large 
portion  of  the  people  of  the  Union,  and  ought 
to  be  repealed."  60 

The  time  was  approaching  when  the  proph- 
ecy of  John  Eandolph  of  Roanoke  was  to  be 
fulfilled.  "Who,"  asked  that  excitable  gen- 
tleman, "  can  bind  posterity?  When  I  hear 
gentlemen  talk  of  making  a  constitution  for 
all  time,  and  yet  see  men  here  that  are  older 
than  the  constitution  we  are  about  to  destroy, 
— I  am  older  myself  than  the  present  consti- 
tution; it  was  established  when  I  was  a  boy, 
— it  reminds  me  of  the  truces  and  peaces  of 
Europe." 

About  this  time  John  C.  Calhoun  was  heard 
thundering  out  the  rights  of  the  nations  to 
withdraw  from  the  compact  to  which  they 
were  parties,  for  "  in  the  adoption  of  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution,  the  States  adopting  the 
same  acted,  severally,  as  free,  independent, 
and  sovereign  States,"  he  said.  The  southern 
nations  had  been  fulfilling  all  the  duties  im- 
posed upon  them  by  the  terms  of  the  treaty, 

eo  Gordon,  129. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        101 

yet  the  northern  and  the  eastern  nations  had 
been  violating  its  terms  daily  since  1789, 
when  it  first  became  effective.  Their  oppres- 
sions became  so  outrageous  that  the  south- 
ern nations  saw  that  they  would  be  compelled 
to  withdraw  from  the  treaty  of  1788  and  its 
amendments,  for  already  the  right  to  exer- 
cise many  of  their  powers  as  sovereignties 
was  denied  to  them.  Long-suffering  were  the 
nations  of  the  south,  nor  had  the  world  be- 
fore witnessed  such  forbearance.  Nowhere 
else,  save  in  heaven,  had  such  charity  been 
found. 

THE   NASHVILLE   CONVENTION 

In  June,  1850,  the  first  session  of  the  Nash- 
ville convention  was  held.  I  shall  not  enter 
upon  a  recital  of  the  important  work  of  that 
session,  nor  of  the  second  session,  which  was 
convened  in  November  of  the  same  year  that 
the  first  session  was  convened.  I  shall  merely 
note  the  address  to  the  peoples  of  the  United 
States  that  was  adopted  at  the  first  session, 
the  resolutions  being  as  follows: 

"1.  Kesolved,  That  the  territories  of  the 
United  States  belong  to  the  people  of  the  sev- 
eral States  of  this  Union,  as  their  common 


102        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

property;  that  the  citizens  of  the  several 
States  have  equal  rights  to  migrate  with  their 
property  to  these  territories  and  are  equally 
entitled  to  the  protection  of  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment in  the  enjoyment  of  that  property  so 
long  as  the  territories  remain  under  the  charge 
of  that  government. 

"2.  Resolved,  That  Congress  has  no  power 
to  exclude  from  the  territory  of  the  United 
States  any  property  lawfully  held  in  the 
States  of  the  Union,  and  any  acts  which  may 
be  passed  by  the  Congress  to  effect  this  result 
is  a  plain  violation  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States. 

"3.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  Con- 
gress to  provide  governments  for  the  territor- 
ies, since  the  spirit  of  American  institutions 
forbids  the  maintenance  of  military  govern- 
ments in  time  of  peace;  and  as  all  laws  here- 
tofore existing  in  territories  once  belonging 
to  foreign  powers  which  interfere  with  the  full 
enjoyment  of  religion,  the  freedom  of  the 
press,  the  trial  by  jury,  and  all  other  rights  of 
persons  and  property  as  secured  or  recognized 
in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  are 
necessarily  void  so  soon  as  such  territories  be- 
come American  territories,  it  is  the  duty  of 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        103 

the  Federal  Government  to  make  early  pro- 
vision for  the  enactment  of  those  laws,  which 
may  be  expedient  and  necessary  to  secure  to 
the  inhabitants  of  and  emigrants  to  such  ter- 
ritories the  full  benefit  of  the  constitutional 
rights  we  assert. 

"4.  Kesolved,  That  to  protect  property  ex- 
isting in  the  several  States  of  the  Union,  the 
people  of  these  States  invested  the  Federal 
Government  with  the  powers  of  war  and  nego- 
tiation, and  of  sustaining  armies  and  navies, 
and  prohibited  to  State  authorities  the  exer- 
cise of  the  same  powers.  They  made  no  dis- 
crimination in  the  protection  to  be  afforded 
or  the  description  of  the  property  to  be  de- 
fended, nor  was  it  allowed  to  the  Federal 
Government  to  determine  what  should  be  held 
as  property.  Whatever  the  States  deal  with 
as  property,  the  Federal  Government  is  bound 
to  recognize  and  defend  as  such.  Therefore  it 
is  the  sense  of  this  convention  that  all  acts  of 
the  Federal  Government  which  tend  to  dena- 
tionalize property  of  any  description  recog- 
nised in  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the 
States,  or  that  discriminate  in  the  degree  and 
efficiency  of  the  protection  to  be  afforded  to 
it,  or  which  weaken  or  destroy  the  title  of  any 


104        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

citizen  upon  American  territories,  are  plain 
and  palpable  violations  of  the  fundamental 
law  under  which  it  exists. 

"  5.  Kesolved,  That  the  slave-holding  States 
cannot  and  will  not  submit  to  the  enactment 
by  Congress  of  any  law  imposing  onerous  con- 
ditions or  restraints  upon  the  rights  of  mas- 
ters to  remove  with  their  property  into  the 
territories  of  the  United  States,  or  to  any 
law  making  discriminations  in  favor  of  the 
proprietors  of  other  property  against  them. 

"6.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  duty  of  the 
Federal  Government  plainly  to  recognize  and 
firmly  to  maintain  the  equal  rights  of  the  citi- 
zens of  the  several  States  in  the  territories 
of  the  United  States,  and  to  repudiate  the 
power  to  make  a  discrimination  between  the 
proprietors  of  different  species  of  property 
in  the  federal  legislation.  The  fulfilment  of 
this  duty  by  the  Federal  Government  would 
greatly  tend  to  restore  the  peace  of  the  coun- 
try, and  to  allay  the  exasperation  and  excite- 
ment which  now  exist  between  the  different 
sections  of  the  Union.  For  it  is  the  deliber- 
ate opinion  of  this  Convention  that  the  tol- 
erance Congress  has  given  to  the  notion  that 
federal  authority  might  be  employed  incident- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        105 

ally  and  indirectly  to  subvert  or  weaken  the 
institution  existing  in  the  States  confessedly 
beyond  federal  jurisdiction  and  control,  is  a 
main  cause  of  the  discord  which  menaces  the 
existence  of  the  Union,  and  which  has  well 
nigh  destroyed  the  efficient  action  of  the  Fed- 
eral Government  itself. 

"  7.  Resolved,  That  the  performance  of  this 
duty  is  required  by  the  fundamental  law  of 
the  Union.  The  equality  of  the  people  of  the 
several  States  composing  the  Union  cannot 
be  disturbed  without  disturbing  the  frame  of 
the  American  institutions.  This  principle  is 
violated  in  the  denial  to  the  citizens  of  the 
slave-holding  States  of  power  to  enter  into 
the  territories  with  the  property  lawfully  ac- 
quired in  the  States.  The  warfare  against  this 
right  is  a  war  upon  the  Constitution.  The 
defenders  of  this  right  are  defenders  of  the 
Constitution.  Those  who  deny  or  impair  its 
exercise  are  unfaithful  to  the  Constitution; 
and  if  disunion  follows  the  destruction  of  the 
right,  they  are  the  disunionista 

"8.  Resolved,  That  the  performance  of  its 
duties,  upon  the  principle  we  declare,  would 
enable  Congress  to  remove  the  embarrass- 
ments in  which  the  country  is  now  involved. 


106        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

The  vacant  territories  of  the  United  States, 
no  longer  regarded  as  prizes  for  sectional 
rapacity  and  ambition,  would  be  gradually 
occupied  by  inhabitants  drawn  to  them  by 
their  interests  and  feelings.  The  institutions 
fitted  to  them  would  be  naturally  applied  by 
governments  formed  on  American  ideas,  and 
approved  by  the  deliberate  choice  of  their 
constituents.  The  community  would  be  edu- 
cated and  disciplined  under  a  republican  ad- 
ministration in  habits  of  self-government,  and 
fitted  for  an  association  as  a  State,  and  to  the 
enjoyment  of  a  place  in  the  Confederacy.  A 
community  so  formed  and  organized  might 
well  claim  admission  to  the  Union,  and  none 
would  dispute  the  validity  of  the  claim. 

"9.  Eesolved,  That  a  recognition  of  this 
principle  would  deprive  the  questions  between 
Texas  and  the  United  States  of  their  sectional 
character,  and  would  leave  them  for  adjust- 
ment without  disturbance  from  sectional 
prejudices  and  passions,  upon  considerations 
of  magnanimity  and  justice. 

"  10.  Resolved,  That  a  recognition  of  this 
principle  would  infuse  a  spirit  of  conciliation 
in  the  discussion  and  adjustment  of  all  the 
subjects  of  sectional  dispute,  which  would  af- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        107 

ford  a  guarantee  of  an  early  and  satisfactory 
determination. 

"11.  Resolved,  That  in  the  event  a  domi- 
nant majority  shall  refuse  to  recognize  the 
great  constitutional  rights  we  assert,  and 
shall  continue  to  deny  the  obligations  of  the 
Federal  Government  to  maintain  them,  it  is 
the  sense  of  this  convention  that  the  terri- 
tories should  be  treated  as  property,  and  di- 
vided between  the  sections  of  the  Union,  so 
that  the  rights  of  both  sections  be  adequately 
secured  in  their  respective  shares.  That  we 
are  aware  this  course  is  open  to  grave  objec- 
tions, but  we  are  ready  to  acquiesce  in  the 
adoption  of  the  line  of  36°  30'  north  latitude, 
extending  to  the  Pacific  Ocean,  as  an  extreme 
concession,  upon  considerations  of  what  is 
due  to  the  stability  of  our  institutions. 

"  12.  Resolved,  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this 
convention  that  this  controversy  should  be 
ended,  either  by  a  recognition  of  the  constitu- 
tional rights  of  the  Southern  people,  or  by  an 
equitable  partition  of  the  territories.  That  the 
spectacle  of  a  Confederacy  of  States,  involved 
in  quarrels  over  the  fruits  of  a  war  in  which 
the  American  arms  were  crowned  with  glory, 
is  humiliating.  That  the  incorporation  of  the 


108        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

Wilmot  proviso,  in  the  offer  of  settlement, — 
a  proposition  which  fourteen  States  regard  as 
disparaging  and  dishonorable, — is  degrading 
to  the  country.  A  termination  to  this  con- 
troversy by  the  disruption  of  the  Confederacy, 
or  by  the  abandonment  of  the  territories  to 
prevent  such  a  result,  would  be  a  climax  to 
the  shame  which  attaches  to  the  controversy 
which  it  is  the  paramount  duty  of  Congress 
to  avoid. 

"13.  Resolved,  That  this  convention  will 
not  conclude  that  Congress  will  adjourn  with- 
out making  an  adjustment  of  this  controversy ; 
and  in  the  condition  in  which  the  convention 
finds  the  questions  before  Congress,  it  does 
not  feel  at  liberty  to  discuss  the  methods  suit- 
able for  a  resistance  to  measures  not  yet 
adopted,  which  might  involve  a  dishonor  to 
the  Southern  States." 

NORTHERNERS,     EASTERNERS     AND     WESTERNERS 
PETITION  CONGRESS  TO  DISSOLVE  THE  UNION 

Apparently  disunion  was  at  hand.  Peti- 
tions to  both  houses  of  congress  asking  for  a 
dissolution  of  the  confederation  were  received 
from  citizens  of  nearly  all  the  nations  par- 
ties to  the  compact.  There  were  petitions 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        109 

from  citizens  of  Pennsylvania,  from  citizens 
of  Delaware,  from  citizens  of  Ohio,  and  from 
citizens  of  the  New  England  nations.  On 
February  1,  1850,  Mr.  Hale  of  New  Hamp- 
shire presented  to  the  Senate  petitions  pray- 
ing for  the  dissolution  of  the  union,  and 
Seward  of  New  York  and  Chase  of  Ohio  voted 
for  their  reception,  as  did  Hale.  The  north- 
ern nations  had  not  the  least  desire  to  remain 
parties  to  a  contract  when  that  contract 
threatened  their  pockets. 

The  southern  nations  were  becoming  power- 
ful commercially.  In  these  days  we  hear 
many  persons  say  that  the  southern  nations 
had  no  commerce.  They  were  among  the  large 
producers  of  manufactured  articles,  and  their 
wealth  in  nearly  all  the  industries  of  the  time 
was  prodigious.  In  agricultural  products 
they  probably  led  the  world.  They  were  about 
to  make  all  their  own  cotton  into  fabrics. 
Whereupon  their  northern  sisters  said,  We 
had  better  part. 

I  shall  say  but  little  about  the  southern 
confederacy.  But  I  wish  to  speak  of  a  few 
of  the  breaches  made  in  the  rampart  that  was 
intended  to  protect  the  American  nations — 
breaches  made  long  before  the  great  breach 


110        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

was  made  by  the  southern  sovereignties.  To 
please  our  northern  friends,  I  shall  speak  of 
these  breaches  as  being  the  work  of  rebels. 

NORTHERN,  EASTERN,  AND  WESTERN  REBELLIONS 

In  1791,  soon  after  the  treaty  was  made  ef- 
fective, the  first  rebellion  was  fought  out.  The 
name  "  Whiskey  Insurrection  "  was  given  to 
that  war  of  generous  proportions — for  a  war 
it  was,  and  of  magnitude  conceived  by  few. 
The  good  people  of  Pennsylvania  were  the 
rebels.  A  tax  had  been  levied  on  a  commodity 
dear  to  the  Pennsylvania's  heart — indeed,  his 
head  also  was  affected,  for  the  commodity  was 
a  fluid  not  altogether  unknown  to  Virginians. 
The  president  of  the  United  States  called  out 
the  federal  troops,  and  for  four  years  the  au- 
thority of  the  United  States  was  defied.  Three 
counties  alone  of  the  rebel  nation  sent  11,000 
men  to  the  field,  and  Ewing  tells  us  that  the 
"movement  was  not  suppressed  until  Presi- 
dent Washington  called  for  75,000  troops,  and 
sent  Governor  Lee,  of  Virginia,  against  the 
rebels."  61 

Mr.  Ewing  also  tells  us  that  there  "  can  be 

6i  E.  W.  R.  Ewing,  Northern  Rebellion  and  Southern 
Secession,  p.  30. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        111 

no  doubt  that  from  1803  to  perhaps  1814  New 
England  furnishes  some  of  the  boldest  seces- 
sion and  rebellion  projects  having  the  least 
justification  which  the  history  of  our  country 
affords."  John  Quincy  Adams  while  presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  wrote  quite  an  in- 
teresting letter.  The  epistle  bears  date  of 
December  20,  1828,  and  in  it  he  says:  "It 
was  ...  in  1808  and  1809  that  I  mentioned 
the  design  of  certain  leaders  of  the  Federal 
party  to  effect  a  dissolution  of  the  Union  and 
the  establishment  of  a  Northern  confederacy. 
This  design  had  been  formed  in  the  winter  of 
1803-'04,  immediately  after,  and  as  a  conse- 
quence of,  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana.  Its 
justifying  causes  to  those  who  entertained  it 
were:  That  the  annexation  of  Louisiana  to 
the  Union  transcended  the  constitutional 
power  of  the  government  of  the  United  States ; 
that  it  formed,  in  fact,  a  new  confederacy,  to 
which  the  States  united  by  the  former  com- 
pact, were  not  bound  to  adhere;  that  it  was 
oppressive  to  the  interests  and  destructive  to 
the  influence  of  the  Northern  section  of  the 
confederacy,  whose  right  and  duty  it  was, 
therefore,  to  secede  from  the  new  body  politic 
and  to  constitute  one  of  their  own.  The  plan 


112        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

was  so  far  matured  that  the  proposal  had 
been  made  to  an  individual  to  permit  himself, 
at  the  proper  time,  to  be  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  military  movements  which,  it  was  fore- 
seen, would  be  necessary  for  carrying  it  into 
execution."  62 

But  I  was  about  to  overlook  that  lovely 
rebellion,  that  thing  of  beauty,  that  creature 
now  a  fancy  in  New  England,  known  as  the 
Hartford  Convention.  During  the  course  of 
his  duty,  the  president  of  the  United  States 
called  upon  each  of  the  nations  to  suppy  sol- 
diers for  the  War  of  1812.  "  This  at  once  gave 
occasion  for  a  fresh  outburst  of  this  rebellious 
spirit.  Not  only  was  it  [not]  confined  to  in- 
dividuals, but  it  reached  as  well  the  highest 
officials  of  the  New  England  States.  Massa- 
chusetts refused  to  obey;  Connecticut  refused 
to  send  her  citizens  in  response  to  the  Federal 
call;  Khode  Island  stood  firm  on  her  State- 
rights  and  asserted  her  sovereignty.  Each  de- 
fied the  Federal  Government,  and  refused  to 
rally  to  her  flag;  each  insisted  that  she  was 
not  bound  to  obey  unless  she  felt  it  to  the  in- 
terest of  the  citizens  of  her  State  to  do  so. 
During  this  opposition  to  the  United  States  in 

62  Henry    Adams,    New    England    Federalism,    p.    52-3, 
quoted  by  Ewing,  p.  32. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        113 

the  War  of  1812,  <A  large  meeting  in  Boston 
declared  the  act  [an  embargo  on  shipping] 
arbitrary  and  unconstitutional,  and  that  all 
who  assisted  in  carrying  out  the  law  should  be 
regarded  as  enemies  of  the  State  and  as  hos- 
tile to  the  liberties  of  the  people.'  'The 
Government  of  Massachusetts  refused  to  sub- 
mit [to  the  demands  of  Congress],  and  the 
authorities  of  the  latter  State  passed  a  law 
for  raising  a  provisional  army  of  two  thou- 
sand for  '  special  State  defense/  of  which  one 
of  her  own  citizens  was  made  commander. 
(Am.  State  Papers:  Misc.,  v.  II.,  186;  Adams, 
New  Eng.,  Fed.,  297.)  And  ever  ready  to 
appeal  to  religious  convictions  for  support, 
the  Massachusetts  Legislature  refused  to  ex- 
tend a  vote  of  thanks  to  Capt.  Lawrence  for 
the  capture  of  the  Peacock  because  that 
august  body  said  '  it  was  not  becoming  a 
moral  and  religious  people '  to  approve  the 
course  of  the  United  States  at  that  time! 

"  The  burdens  of  the  war  fell  heavily  upon 
them,  yet  they  did  not  have  such  a  love  for 
the  United  States,  as  a  nation,  as  to  be  will- 
ing patiently  to  wait  the  rifting  of  the  war 
cloud ;  they  loudly  protested  that  the  interests 
of  the  people  of  their  several  States  were  first, 


114        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

paramount, — and  second  and  last,  the  na- 
tional interests.  They  argued  that  they  had 
entered  the  Union  and  had  temporarily  sus- 
pended their  sovereign  independence  to  facili- 
tate State  success,  and  that  they  had  a  right 
to  determine  when  individual  State  happiness 
was  jeopardized.1  In  the  Hartford  Conven- 
tion, which  met  in  1814,  Connecticut,  Khode 
Island,  New  Hampshire,  and  Vermont  were 
more  or  less  largely  represented.  As  a  result 
of  their  deliberations,  they  came  forth  in  what 
was  called  the  REPORT,  in  which,  among 
other  things,  they  made  the  following  declara- 
tion: 

" '  In  case  of  deliberate,  dangerous,  and  pal- 
pable infractions  of  the  Constitution,  AF- 
FECTING THE  SOVEREIGNTY  OF  A 
STATE  AND  THE  LIBERTIES  OF  THE 
PEOPLE,  it  is  not  only  the  right,  but  the 
duty  of  such  State  to  interpose  its  authority 
for  protection  in  the  manner  best  calculated 
to  secure  that  end.'  And  they  declared  that 
when  cases  arise  which  jeopardize  the  happi- 
ness and  peace  of  the  citizens,  States  '  must 
be  their  own  judges  and  execute  their  own 
decisions.' " 63 

63Ewing,  p.  33-4. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        115 

I  shall  not  trace  the  progress  of  the  events 
that  occurred  between  1850  and  1860.  But, 
in  passing,  let  me  say  that  the  northern  na- 
tions evidently  believed  that  they  could  ex- 
ploit the  southern  nations  time  without  end 
in  the  manner  that  they  had  exploited  them 
in  the  past,  provided  that  the  union  of  the  na- 
tions should  not  be  dissolved.  Again  the 
Yankee  knew  what  he  was  about.  From  Ap- 
pomattox  to  this  minute  the  northern  nations 
have  fleeced  the  southern  nations  as  no  other 
peoples  of  the  world  ever  have  been  sheared. 
My  friends,  this  I  say  to  our  shame.  Meek 
humility  may  become  the  crime  of  suicide. 
But  more  of  this  later. 


Ill 

THE  AMERICAN  ABSOLUTE 
MONARCHY 

FROM  1865  TO  1910 

THE  genesis  of  the  southern  treaty  was 
similar  to  the  genesis  of  the  treaty  made  be- 
tween the  American  nations  in  1788,  which 
treaty  was  the  result  of  the  desire  of  its  par- 
ties to  form  an  alliance  to  protect  them  from 
invasion  and  to  regulate  their  relations  with 
one  another  and  with  other  sovereignties. 
The  compact  of  confederation  that  existed  be- 
tween the  southern  peoples  did  not  make  a 
single  nation  of  them.  The  southern  coun- 
tries were  to  fight  the  greatest  war  of  mod- 
ern days, — a  fight  to  the  death,  that  their 
sovereignty  might  be  preserved,  that  they 
might  continue  to  be  an  nations, — hence  the 
southern  confederation  would  have  been 
peaceably  dissolved  upon  the  successful  ter- 
mination of  the  war,  although  later  the  na- 
tion's parties  to  the  compact  of  confederation 

116 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        117 

doubtless  would  have  entered  into  a  treaty 
with  one  another  similar  in  its  various  pro- 
visions to  the  compact  of  1788  and  its  amend- 
ments, which  was  the  basis  of  their  compact 
of  union.  The  new  treaty  would  have  defined 
the  relations  of  the  nations  to  one  another, 
and  to  other  nations;  but  that  instrument 
would  not  have  affected  the  sovereignty  of  any 
party  to  the  agreement.  To  hold  that  a  na- 
tion was  formed  of  the  southern  peoples 
would  be  equivalent  to  holding  that  the  south- 
ern nations  did  not  know  why  they  were  to 
fight. 

THE   CONFEDERATE   STATES   OF   AMERICA   A 
TEMPORARY   CONFEDERATION 

Never  spell  the  southern  section  of  this  con- 
tinent that  once  consisted  of  sovereign  coun- 
tries with  an  initial  capital  letter.  There  never 
was  a  "  South  "  in  America.  The  Confederate 
States  of  America,  a  temporary  association, 
was  an  agreement  between  sovereignties.  The 
words  in  which  that  agreement  was  written 
never  were  intended  to  mean  that  sovereign- 
ties would  be  merged  into  a  single  nation. 

Please  pardon  this  brief  digression.  I  wish 
to  say  that  the  proper  title  of  the  war  that 


118        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

was  fought  between  1861  and  1865  is,  the 
War  between  the  American  States;  or,  the 
War  between  the  American  Nations.  There 
was  no  Civil  War,  there  was  no  War  of  the 
Bebellion;  there  was  no  War  between  the 
United  States  of  America  and  the  Confeder- 
ate States  of  America;  there  was  no  War  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South ;  but  there  was 
a  war  between  American  sovereignties,  in 
which  the  nations  were  divided  into  two  sets 
of  allies. 

To  show  you  how  jealously  the  parties  to  the 
southern  confederation  guarded  their  rights, 
I  will  quote  from  the  letters  that  passed  be- 
tween the  war  governor  of  Georgia,  Joseph  E. 
Brown,  and  the  confederation's  secretary  of 
war,  James  A.  Seddon.  When  Georgia  was 
invaded  by  General  Sherman,  Governor 
Brown  raised  an  army  to  resist  the  invaders. 
Whereupon  Secretary  Seddon,  in  obedience  to 
the  instructions  that  he  had  received  from 
President  Davis,  made  requisition  on  the  gov- 
ernor for  his  entire  army.  Here  in  part  is 
the  governor's  answer  to  the  secretary: 

"  I  have  an  organization  of  gallant,  fearless 
men,  ready  to  defend  the  State  against  usurpa- 
tions of  power  as  well  as  invasions  by  the 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        119 

enemy.  .  .  .  Her  militia  have  been  organized 
and  called  into  active  service  under  her  own 
laws  for  her  own  defence,  and  I  do  not  feel 
that  I  am  authorized  to  destroy  her  military 
organization  at  the  behest  of  the  President,  or 
to  surrender  to  him  the  command  of  the  troops 
organized  and  retained  by  her  by  virtue  of 
her  reserved  power  for  her  own  defence  when 
greatly  needed  for  that  purpose,  and  which 
are  her  only  remaining  protection  against  the 
encroachments  of  centralized  power.  I  there- 
fore decline  to  comply  with  or  fill  this  extraor- 
dinary requisition.  .  .  .  And  if  you  will  not 
consider  the  remark  acrimonious,  I  will  add 
that  the  people  of  my  State,  not  being  de- 
pendent, and  never  intending  to  be,  upon  that 
government  for  the  privilege  of  exercising 
their  natural  and  Constitutional  rights,  nor 
the  Executive  of  the  State  for  his  official  ex- 
istence, I  shall  on  all  occasions  feel  at  liberty 
to  exercise  perfect  independence  in  the  dis- 
charge of  my  official  obligations,  with  no  other 
restraints  than  those  thrown  around  me  by  a 
sense  of  duty,  and  the  Constitution  of  my 
country,  and  the  laws  of  my  State." 6* 
That  great  and  good  man  Jefferson  Davis, 

64  Fielder,  Life  and  Times  of  Joseph  E.  Broum,  pp.  318- 
335. 


120        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

who,  posterity  will  say,  belongs  to  that  small 
band  of  men  of  which  are  Alexander,  Caesar, 
Hannibal,  and  Bonaparte, — and  I  say  that 
despite  the  opinions  to  the  contrary  of  many 
persons  who  fought  for  the  cause  for  which 
their  great  leader  would  have  given  his  life, 
even  as  they  offered  theirs  to  heaven  or  to  hell, 
— I  was  going  to  say  that  the  war  would  not 
have  lasted  three  months  had  Jefferson  Davis 
been  willing  to  invade  the  lands  of  sovereign 
powers.  The  battle  that  was  waged  in  the 
soul  of  that  great  man  was  greater  than  any 
that  you  fought,  Soldiers  of  the  Eighth  Vir- 
ginia Regiment,  or  by  your  comrades  that  now 
sleep  about  us  beneath  their  white  "  silent 
tents."  Peace  was  at  hand,  the  sovereignty  of 
all  the  nations  assured,  but  Jefferson  Davis 
would  not  follow  the  Mississippi  to  her  source, 
for  he  would  have  been  obliged  to  enter  the 
dominions  of  sovereignties.  Jefferson  Davis 
made  a  mistake;  but  we  Virginians  like  men 
that  make  mistakes  of  that  kind. 

VICTORS   AND  VANQUISHED  NEVER   MATE 

The  irascible  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke 
once  said :  "  I  do  not  recall  a  single  instance 
of  cordiality  between  reconciled  friends." 


The,  Sovereignty  of  the  States        121 

Some  day  those  who  have  not  read  the  writ- 
ings of  the  "lunatic"  of  southwestern  Vir- 
ginia should  lay  aside  Shakespeare  for  awhile, 
then  take  up  the  writings  of  John  Randolph 
of  Roanoke.  What  would  the  old  "  lunatic  " 
have  said  had  he  been  told  that  in  the  days 
that  were  to  come — these  days — that  the  peo- 
ples of  the  north,  hating  the  people  of  the 
south  for  more  than  three  centuries,  should 
profess  for  them  a  most  ardent  love?  Has  a 
victorious  people  ever  loved  the  people  that 
they  vanquished?  Has  a  vanquished  people 
ever  loved  the  people  that  vanquished  them? 
Come,  while  we  are  among  ourselves,  let  us 
admit  that  we  hate  our  enemies,  and  also  let 
us  admit  that  we  know  that  they  are  still  our 
enemies.  During  the  last  past  twenty  years  I 
have  travelled  in  all  the  southern  communities 
that  once  were  nations,  and  I  have  had  ex- 
cellent opportunity  to  study  them  closely;  I 
was  born  in  Virginia,  received  a  part  of  my 
education  there,  and  lived  there  during  my 
boyhood.  For  the  last  past  eighteen  years  I 
have  lived  in  the  city  of  Washington,  or  in 
the  city  of  New  York,  and  during  those  years 
I  have  travelled  in  the  north,  the  east,  the 
west,  as  well  as  in  the  south.  I  say,  with  de- 


122        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

liberation,  that  the  hatred  of  those  of  the 
north  toward  those  of  the  south  is  an  hun- 
dredfold greater  than  those  of  the  south  to- 
ward those  of  the  north.  There  is  a  reason. 
The  injured  never  hate  those  that  injure  them 
so  much  as  the  injurers  hate  those  that  they 
injure.  Yes,  O  Shade  of  the  Mighty  "  Luna- 
tic "  of  Roanoke,  if  your  spirit  be  about  this 
battle-ground,  the  "  cordialty  "  that  exists  be- 
tween them  that  live  north  and  them  that 
live  south  of  the  Potomac  river  is  of  the  kind 
that  would  have  brought  from  your  "  crazy  " 
brain  an  immortal  expression. 

The  war  over, — apparently  over, — you,  Sol- 
diers of  the  Eighth  Virginia  Eegiment,  when 
you  laid  down  your  arms,  were  told  that  your 
country  should  have  all  the  powers  of  sover- 
eignty, save  one :  she  should  not  be  permitted 
to  withdraw  from  the  treaty  of  1788  and  its 
amendments.  Not  long  after  that  promise 
was  made  to  you  one  of  the  victors,  Mr.  Chief 
Justice  Chase,  hastened  to  assure  you  that  the 
disastrous  ending  of  the  war  did  not  take 
from  the  southern  nations  their  rights  as 
sovereignties.  In  one  of  his  great  decisions — 
Texas  vs.  White — he  said :  "  The  Constitution 
of  the  United  States  in  all  its  provisions  looks 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        123 

to  an  indestructible  union  of  indestructible 
states."  By  "states"  he  did  not  mean  sec- 
tions of  a  single  country,  but  he  used  the 
word  "states"  in  the  sense  in  which  it  has 
been  used  from  the  time  that  it  became  a  part 
of  our  language  until  a  few  years  ago,  when 
the  people  of  this  monarchy  began  to  say  that 
the  meaning  of  "  states  "  as  it  was  known  for 
centuries  is  archaic,  that  "  states  "  now  means 
sections  of  a  country.  Now  we  speak  of  the 
"nations"  of  Europe  and  the  "states"  of 
America. 

JOHN  MARSHALL  LEFT  BUT  LITTLE  OF  THE  CON- 
STITUTION   FOR    OTHERS   TO    DESTROY 

But  Mr.  Chief  Justice  Chase  was  not  the 
whole  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States. 
As  I  have  said,  the  members  of  the  highest 
tribunal  of  the  American  monarchy  were 
merely  the  minions  of  the  American  despot. 
From  the  time  that  the  shade  of  Alexander 
Hamilton  first  hovered  above  the  heads  of 
the  members  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States  until  the  time  that  the  Amer- 
ican monarchy  was  firmly  established,  the 
opinions  of  the  highest  judicial  body  under 
the  federal  government  all  were  designed  to 


124        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

extend  its  own  jurisdiction  or  to  maintain 
its  own  despotic  powers.  The  opinion  of 
Mr.  Chief  Justice  Chase  was  to  be  disregarded 
by  his  court. 

Probably  the  most  outrageous  of  the  juris- 
dictional  opinions  was  the  one  in  which  the 
"  fiction  of  the  law  "  was  expanded  until  that 
"fiction"  became  this  "truth" — that  a  cor- 
poration is  a  citizen  of  the  state  to  whose  laws 
the  corporation  owes  its  existence.  The  "  nig- 
ner  in  the  wood-pile  "  could  be  seen  by  all,  of 
course.  Little  did  the  court  care  for  that,  for 
long  since  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  was  lost  to  shame.  The  object  of  the 
court  was  effected :  corporations  were  enabled 
to  remove  their  suits  to  federal  courts.  Thus 
the  last  vestige  of  power  was  stripped  from 
the  tribunals  of  the  states.  As  I  have  said, 
the  state  tribunals  became  the  lowest  courts 
of  the  new  monarchy.  They  would  have  been 
made  so  by  the  decision  to  which  I  have  just 
referred  had  they  not  already  been  nisi  prius 
federal  courts. 

Again,  in  the  language  of  Mr.  Fox's  admir- 
able book: 

"  Before  quoting  from  Justice  Gray's  most 
remarkable  opinion  in  Millard  vs.  Greenman 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        125 

(vol.  110,  U.  S.  R.,  page  421),  in  many  points 
possibly  the  most  remarkable  ever  given  to  the 
country  by  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  (it  goes  to  the  very  verge  of  pronounc- 
ing the  rights  of  the  States  and  their  citizens 
as  merely  spontaneous  and  unmerited  gifts 
of  the  federal  government,  which  that  govern- 
ment has  the  right  to  withhold  at  any  time,  or 
to  prohibit  the  enjoyment  and  exercise  thereof 
at  its  discretion),  I  quote  three  articles  of 
the  Constitution  itself.  .  .  .  'No  question 
[says  Justice  Gray]  of  the  scope  and  extent 
of  the  implied  powers  of  congress  under  the 
Constitution  can  be  satisfactorily  discussed 
without  repeating  much  of  the  reasoning  of 
Chief  Justice  Marshall  in  the  great  judgment 
in  McCullough  vs.  Maryland  (4  Wheat.,  316), 
by  which  the  power  of  congress  to  incorporate 
a  bank  was  demonstrated  and  affirmed.'  Never- 
theless the  Constitution  does  not  enumerate, 
among  the  powers  granted,  that  of  establish- 
ing a  bank  or  creating  a  corporation.  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  did  not  demonstrate — nor 
could  demonstrate — that  congress  under  the 
Constitution  had  the  power  to  create  a  bank 
or  any  other  corporation,  for  that  power  was 
positively  refused  to  congress  by  a  very  large 


126        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

majority.  .  .  .  This  statement  by  Justice 
Gray  is  a  perfect  illustration  of  the  intellec- 
tual cowardice  and  moral  slavery  of  the  court 
to  Hamilton's  and  to  Marshall's  political 
opinions  .  .  .  Mr.  Justice  Gray  makes  this 
quotation  from  the  chief  justice's  opinion  in 
the  McCullough  vs.  Maryland  case :  '  Let  the 
end  be  legitimate,  let  it  be  within  the  scope 
of  the  Constitution,  and  all  means  which  are 
appropriate,  which  are  plainly  adapted  to 
that  end,  which  are  not  prohibited  but  con- 
sistent with  the  letter  and  spirit  of  the  Con- 
stitution, are  constitutional.' " 

John  Marshall  indeed  left  but  little  of  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  for  others 
to  destroy.  If  a  schoolboy  of  any  part  of  this 
monarchy  were  asked  to  name  the  most  in- 
famous of  all  American  traitors  he  probably 
would  mention  the  name  of  Benedict  Arnold, 
a  New  England  man.  If  I  were  asked  that 
question,  in  reply  I  should  name  John  Mar- 
shall, a  Virginian,  than  who  no  greater  traitor 
has  lived  since  the  time  of  Judas  Iscariot. 
There  have  been  men  who  by  treachery  have 
destroyed  several  nations;  but  I  venture  to 
say  that  John  Marshall  by  treachery  has  de- 
stroyed more  nations  than  any  other  man  of 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        127 

recorded  time.  Not  by  the  armies  of  Sherman 
and  Grant  was  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  destroyed,  but  by  the  political  opin- 
ions of  Alexander  Hamilton  judicially  ren- 
dered by  John  Marshall. 

Indeed  has  Patrick  Henry's  prophecy  been 
fulfilled.  Said  that  great  statesman:  "We 
drew  the  spirit  of  liberty  from  our  British 
ancestors:  by  that  spirit  we  have  triumphed 
over  every  .difficulty.  But  indeed,  sir,  the 
American  spirit,  assisted  by  the  ropes  and 
chains  of  consolidation,  is  about  to  convert 
this  country  into  a  powerful  and  mighty  em- 
pire."65 Again,  was  he  wrong  on  the  ninth 
day  of  June,  in  1788,  when  he  thundered  out 
this  question:  "Will  not  absolute  despotism 
ensue? " 

THE  TENTACLES   OF  THE  AMERICAN   DESPOT 

All  in  Virginia  know  that  Maryland,  My 
Maryland!  recently  has  been  made  over — into 
one  of  the  patriotic  songs  of  the  American 
monarchy.  The  pupils  of  the  public  schools 
of  the  nation  who  breathed  and  burned,  but 
who  did  not  come,  are  to  be  taught  the  new 
song.  Possibly  the  politics  of  the  American 

«5  Wirt,  p.  446. 


128        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

monarchy  is  not  taught  in  the  public  schools 
of  the  City  of  Baltimore  as  yet. 

But  in  the  City  of  New  York  studies  in 
the  politics  of  the  American  monarchy  and 
studies  in  her  patriotism  now  are  begun  in 
the  kindergarten.  Here  is  the  first  lesson  of 
a  long  course  in  each  of  those  studies,  for  this 
one  lesson  combines  politics  and  patriotism. 
The  lesson  is  entitled  Our  Flag.  Even  now 
I  can  see  the  dear  little  boys  and  girls  salute 
the  Stars  and  Stripes,  and  even  now  I  can 
hear  them  earnestly  intone  this  chant :  "  I 
pledge  allegiance  to  my  flag  and  to  the  Re- 
public for  which  it  stands.  One  nation,  in- 
divisible, with  liberty  and  justice  for  all." 
There  are  not  even  state  lines  to  separate  the 
communities  that  form  the  American  mon- 
archy— not  if  the  teachings  of  the  public 
schools  of  the  City  of  New  York  be  true. 
"  One  nation,  indivisible," — is  the  American 
monarchy  whose  institutions  the  pupils  of 
New  York  City  are  taught  to  revere. 

Yet,  no  one  of  the  communities  that  com- 
pose our  monarchy  is  more  jealous  of  her 
rights  than  is  New  York  state.  We  recently 
read  that  a  South  Carolinian  legislative  body 
by  a  vote  of  one  hundred  to  three  declared 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        129 

that  South  Carolina  no  longer  desired  to  re- 
sist the  encroachments  of  the  federal  govern- 
ment; but  no  New  York  legislative  body  will 
vote  to  surrender  to  the  federal  government 
such  powers  of  sovereignty  as  New  York  may 
now  have  left  to  her.  There  are  other  com- 
munities north  of  the  Potomac  that  will  vote 
against  the  proposed  income  tax  amendment,  I 
think.  Few  of  the  people  of  the  state  of  New 
York  know  that  the  federal  government  is 
teaching  their  children  that  New  York  as  a 
community  no  longer  exists.  Yet  the  des- 
pot that  is  now  on  the  American  throne  has 
his  agents  in  every  community  in  this  land — 
those  agents  by  their  influence  controlling  the 
public  instruction  of  each  community. 

Whence  this  great  force,  this .  organisation 
that  is  so  powerful  as  to  be  all  inclusive? 
Federal  patronage,  is  my  answer.  During  the 
year  1909  there  were  370,065  persons  on  the 
federal  pay  roll  exclusive  of  the  new  census 
force,  as  against  306,141  in  1907,  an  increase 
in  two  years  of  about  64,000  persons,  or  about 
twenty  per  cent.  No  federal  employee  would 
long  retain  his  office  if  he  gave  expression  to 
a  belief  entertained  by  him  in  the  right  of  the 
communities  to  govern  themselves  in  accord- 


130        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

ance  with  the  terms  of  their  compact  of  con- 
federation. Those  minions  of  the  despot,  like 
the  tentacles  of  some  huge  octopus,  are  every- 
where, and  in  the  clutch  of  each  tentacle  is  to 
be  found  a  schoolteacher.  The  minions  con- 
trol indirectly — where  they  do  not  directly 
control — well-nigh  every  department  of  gov- 
ernment of  the  American  communities. 

The  American  despot  may  select  the  mem- 
bers of  his  Congress — and  he  does.  He  may 
"  break  "  congressmen  as  well  as  make  them 
• — and  he  does.  He  may  make  as  well  as 
"  break  "  the  officers  of  the  federal  courts — 
and  he  does.  Indeed  is  the  American  ruler 
a  despotic  monarch  absolutely  controlling  ev- 
ery department  of  the  American  government. 

A  "  DEMOCRAT  "   SEEKS  THE  AMERICAN   THRONE 

So  far  all  the  American  monarchs  have  been 
Republicans,  but  the  right  to  the  throne  of 
each  was  bitterly  contested  by  a  "  Democrat " 
— by  one  who,  had  he  been  permitted  to  as- 
cend the  throne,  would  have  been  as  ruthless 
as  Nero  in  wielding  the  powers  of  an  absolute 
despotism. 

In  a  speech  that  this  demagogue  recently 
made  in  Chicago  he  actually  contended  that 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        131 

the  larger  unit  has  a  right  to  control  the 
smaller  unit.  In  commenting  on  this  speech 
The  Houston  Post  says: 

"  The  proposition  that  the  larger  unit  has 
a  right  to  control  the  smaller  unit  is  in  con- 
flict with  not  only  every  principle  of  Democ- 
racy, but  with  the  federal  Constitution  itself, 
and  if  any  attempt  were  made  to  assert  it  the 
country  might  be  thrown  into  a  furor  scarcely 
less  intense  than  that  which  once  involved 
the  states  in  civil  war.  .  .  .  The  doctrine  of 
centralization  or  the  federalism  of  Hamilton 
never  included,  so  far  as  we  know,  such  an 
extreme  assertion  of  the  right  of  the  majority 
to  strangle  the  rights  of  minorities,  either  in- 
dividually or  as  political  entities." 

Even  The  New  York  Tribune,  commenting 
on  the  Chicago  speech  and  on  The  Houston 
Post's  views,  is  moved  to  say: 

"  The  will-of-the-larger-unit  theory  is  sound 
enough  when  applied  to  the  subdivisions  of 
a  state  which  are  not  federated  in  order  to 
form  a  limited  political  sovereignty.  The  au- 
thority of  a  state  is  paramount  in  every 
county,  city  and  township  within  its  limits. 
But  the  power  of  the  nation  over  the  state  is 
not  unconditional.  It  is  strictly  defined  and 


132        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

narrowed  by  the  terms  of  the  federal  compact, 
and  it  is  an  extravagance  to  say  that,  simply 
because  a  majority  in  Congress  favors  na- 
tional prohibition,  laws  can  be  passed  which 
will  forbid  a  state  to  sanction  the  manufac- 
ture or  sale  of  liquor  within  its  borders." 

To  think,  that  from  The  New  York  Tribune! 
One  of  the  important  newspapers  of  New 
York,  a  newspaper  that  for  many  years  has 
been  immensely  influential  in  Europe  as  well 
as  in  America,  in  a  leading  editorial  article 
refers  to  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States  as  "  the  federal  compact,"  and  yet  a 
legislative  body  of  South  Carolina  by  a  vote 
of  one  hundred  to  three  says  that  the  compact 
of  1788  and  its  amendments  made  a  nation 
which  they  are  now  willing  to  have  ruled  by 
a  despot. 

I  shall  again  quote  from  The  New  York 
Tribune's  leading  editorial  article  of  June  8, 
1910,  thus: 

"  For  a  professed  disciple  of  Jefferson  Mr. 
Bryan  has  advocated  some  curiously  nation- 
alistic policies.  In  proposing  that  the  federal 
government  should  own  and  operate  all  the 
instrumentalities  of  interstate  commerce  he 
committed  himself  to  a  startling  experiment 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        133 

in  centralization.  He  favored  dwarfing  the 
states  and  giving  a  gigantic  grant  of  power 
to  the  nation,  In  his  last  suggestion  he  has 
gone  even  further.  He  has  practically  wiped 
out  state  lines  by  proposing  that  the  will  of 
a  mere  majority  in  Congress  shall  be  compe- 
tent to  determine  how  the  states  shall  employ 
their  police  powers  and  manage  their  purely 
domestic  concerns.  He  has  become  an  extra- 
Hamiltonized  Jeffersonian." 

Yet  this  man  Bryan,  who  three  times  has 
sought  to  be  America's  despot — who  still  in- 
tends to  become  America's  despot — receives 
the  electoral  votes  of  all  the  southern  com- 
munities that  once  were  nations,  and  that 
once  fought  that  the  nations  might  ever  be 
sovereign.  At  the  same  time  the  electoral 
votes  of  all  the  other  communities  are  cast 
for  men  that  would  be  less  despotic  than 
Bryan.  Under  his  leadership  the  southern 
communities'  have  said  that  they  wish  the 
American  despot  directly  to  tax  their  in- 
comes; they  have  said  that  they  no  longer 
wish  to  exercise  any  power  of  sovereignty. 
"  Home  rule?  We  want  the  rule  of  a  despotic 
sovereign !  "  they  cried  aloud.  Virginians,  to 
our  shame  I  say,  had  it  not  been  for  the  com- 


134        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

munities  that  as  nations  defeated  us,  this  day 
our  common  carriers  would  be  operated  under 
the  direction  of  a  monarch,  and  all  your  af- 
fairs would  be  directed  by  an  absolute  power 
wielded  by  a  single  man. 

The  Virginian  that  this  man  who  aspires  to 
be  a  despot  claims  to  admire  above  all  other 
men,  held  that  men  were  not  to  be  governed, 
that  the  purpose  of  organised  society  was  to 
prevent  men  from  preying  upon  one  another. 
Nevertheless,  the  man  that  would  be  a  despot 
at  the  time  that  he  professes  to  be  a  follower 
of  the  Virginian  that  he  hails  as  master, 
would  take  from  all  American  human  beings 
their  natural  rights  as  well  as  those  acquired. 
He  would  form  the  tastes  of  every  man  and 
of  every  woman  in  this  monarchy.  He  would 
deny  to  every  man  and  to  every  woman  every 
human  right.  That  is  the  kind  of  ruler  that 
the  south  wants  and  whom  the  north  and  the 
east  and  the  west  will  not  tolerate. 

The  rights  of  those  that  live  in  the  south 
must  not  be  left  wholly  to  the  direction  of 
the  persons  that  once  constituted  the  peo- 
ples that  they  fought,  This  man  Bryan — 
no  southerner — would  take  from  the  south- 
ern communities  the  little  wealth  and  power 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        135 

that  they  have  left  to  them.    I  thank  God  that 
no  southern  blood  flows  through  his  veins. 

THE   SHAME    OF   SOUTH    CAROLINA 

Let  our  total  destruction  be  brought  about 
by  our  natural  enemies,  not  by  ourselves.  This 
man  Bryan,  hearing  that  the  legislators  of 
South  Carolina  would  defeat  by  an  overwhelm- 
ing majority  the  proposed  income  tax  amend- 
ment, addresses  those  legislators  in  a  speech, 
• — thus  interfering  in  the  domestic  affairs  of 
South  Carolina, — and  lo!  South  Carolinians 
again  harken  to  his  voice.  By  a  vote  of 
one  hundred  to  three  they  agree  that  those 
who  once  were  the  inhabitants  of  a  proud  na- 
tion should  have  the  last  vestige  of  their  sover- 
eignty taken  from  them. 

Virginians,  are  we  also  to  say  that  we  wish 
to  become  slaves?  I  hear  that  an  attempt  is 
again  to  be  made  to  force  Virginia  to  adopt 
the  proposed  income  tax  amendment.  If  that 
attempt  succeeds,  then  indeed  will  Virginia 
have  fallen  from  the  high  estate  that  once 
was  hers.  I  appeal  to  you,  Virginians, — as 
bone  of  your  bone  and  blood  of  your  blood  I 
appeal  to  you, — do  not  let  so  infamous  an 
outrage  be  perpetrated  upon  you.  Drive  out 


136        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

of  this  old  commonwealth  the  false  leaders  of 
her  people,  be  they  Nebraskans  or  Virginians, 
and  resume  the  place  that  you  once  held 
among  proud  nations.  To-day  your  hearths 
are  in  danger — as  they  were  not  in  danger  in 
1861.  To-day  you  are  to  say  if  your  children 
and  your  children's  children  are  to  be  slaves. 
I  do  not  speak  in  mere  figures  of  speech.  A 
real  slavery  is  threatened — a  bondage  of  mind 
and  of  body.  Civilisation  can  not  endure  un- 
der any  government  that  does  not  recognise 
the  principles  of  home  rule,  and  practice  those 
principles. 

Under  the  form  of  federal  confederation 
that  our  fathers  intended  to  establish,  the 
human  race  in  America  would  have  been 
capable  of  its  highest  development.  To  be- 
come higher  types  of  man  the  peoples  of  the 
world  may  not  be  amalgamated.  To  the  con- 
trary, degeneration  would  certainly  be  the  re- 
sult of  amalgamation.  Provincialism  and 
sectionalism  are  necessary  to  a  high  develop- 
ment of  mankind.  Home  rule  may  not  be 
too  elastic,  but  should  stretch  from  the  fam- 
ily life  to  the  life  of  the  nation, — yes,  even 
to  the  life  of  the  world,  including  all  nations. 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        137 

THE  PEACE  COMMISSION 

In  these  days  we  witness  the  attempts  that 
are  being  made  in  all  parts  of  the  world  to 
break  down  the  borders  that  separate  the  na- 
tions one  from  another  and  to  make  of  the 
peoples  of  the  world  one  vast  nation.  The 
people  of  the  new  nation  are  to  think  alike, 
they  are  to  dress  alike,  and  all  their  acts  are 
to  spring  from  one  process  of  thought.  The 
Peace  Commission  threatens  the  human  race. 
War  is  not  an  unmitigated  evil.  But  whether 
we  desire  perpetual  peace  or  not,  the  object 
of  the  Peace  Commission  is  not  alone  to  make 
wars  among  nations  impossible,  but  to 
bring  about  the  amalgamation  of  all  the  peo- 
ples of  the  world.  If  I  be  mistaken,  if  the 
principal  object  that  the  peace  commissioners 
wish  to  attain  is  not  the  creation  of  a  single 
nation,  to  be  made  of  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth,  still,  I  say,  the  work  of  the  Commis- 
sion may  effect  the  amalgamation  of  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth ;  and  may  reduce  all  men, 
by  stages  of  degeneration,  to  mere  barbarians. 
In  the  Peace  Commission  I  see  a  cloud  in  the 
horizon  that  already  has  reached  ominous 
proportions.  Already  I  see  that  the  first  page 


138        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

of  another  federal  compact,  similar  to  that 
of  1788,  has  been  written. 

But  whether  you  be  a  federalist,  or  one  who 
contends  that  the  highest  form  of  government 
is  to  be  found  where  home  rule  prevails,  you 
must  admit  that  the  way  to  make  a  nation  of 
the  American  peoples  was  not  through  the 
methods  by  which  this  monarchy  was  made — 
you  must  admit  that  the  peoples  of  the  Amer- 
ican nations  should  have  formed  that  mon- 
archy in  the  manner  provided  by  the  treaty 
of  1788  and  its  amendments.  In  that  compact 
of  confederation  there  is  no  clause  that  pro- 
vides for  the  compact's  amendment  by  its 
ruthless  destruction. 

The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  has 
been  torn  up  by  a  few  persons  while  the 
American  peoples  slept.  Indeed,  the  people 
of  the  American  monarchy  are  yet  asleep. 
When  they  awake  after  their  long  slumber,  as 
did  Eip  Van  Winkle  of  old,  they  will  find 
that  they  are  slaves  under  a  despotism  more 
powerful  than  any  other  that  the  world  has 
ever  known. 

Thus,  Soldiers  of  the  Eighth  Virginia  Eegi- 
ment,  the  victorious  nations  violated  the 
terms  of  surrender  by  which  you  were  induced 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        139 

to  lay  down  your  arms — before  the  ink  dried 
on  the  paper  that  contained  those  terms.  I 
shall  not  recall  the  details  of  the  outrages 
that  have  been  committed  upon  the  defeated 
nations  by  the  victors,  for  those  details  are 
indelibly  written  on  the  memory  of  each  Vir- 
ginian— written  in  blood,  then  burned  into 
memory  by  countless  fires.  So  I  shall  not  re- 
late the  horrors  of  the  War  of  Reconstruction 
in  detail ;  nor  shall  I  trace  in  detail  the  growth 
of  the  American  monarchy;  but  I  shall  ask 
you  to  consider  several  of  countless  outrages 
that  have  been  committed  by  the  victors  upon 
their  defeated  foes.  I  refer  to  these  because 
they  are  existing  evils, — continuing  outrages, 
. — which  cause  me  to  tremble  with  indigna- 
tion and  shame  as  I  utter  these  words. 

INDEMNITY   BY   PENSION   LAWS 

First  I  shall  refer  to  the  infamous  pension 
laws  now  in  force,  by  which  laws  the  van- 
quished have  been  forced  to  pay  to  the  victors 
an  indemnity  amounting  to  billions.  While 
all  the  American  sovereignties  fought  out  a 
great  war  in  order  that  a  question  arising  un- 
der the  interpretation  of  the  treaty  to  which 
they  were  parties  might  be  decided,  yet  the 


140        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

defeated  nations  in  pensions  alone  have  been 
required  to  pay  out  billions  to  their  victors. 
Even  now  the  defeated  peoples  are  paying 
millions  annually  as  indemnity  in  pensions. 

It  is  a  pitiful  sight  as  well  as  a  shameful,  to 
see  those  old  veterans  of  the  defeated  nations 
yearly  pay  tribute  to  the  men  that  they 
fought  fifty  years  ago. 

The  defeated  nations  were  right  in  their 
contention  that  as  sovereignties  they  could 
withdraw  from  the  treaty  of  1788  and  its 
amendments,  for  they  had  reserved  that  right 
to  themselves;  but  the  force  of  might  made 
right,  so  the  victors,  in  violation  of  the  terms 
of  surrender,  seized  all  the  right  that  might 
gave  to  them.  Not  only  were  the  vanquished 
made  to  pay  billions  in  pensions  to  those  that 
they  had  fought,  their  widows  and  their  minor 
children,  but  they  were  made  to  pay  fully 
three  times  as  much  more  in  pensions  to  those 
that  they  had  not  fought,  and  their  widows 
and  their  minor  children.  Every  dollar  of 
indemnity — save  for  a  small  amount  paid  to 
negroes — was  spent  beyond  the  lands  of  the 
defeated  nations,  and  not  one  penny  of  all 
those  enormous  payments  was  returned  to  the 
defeated  peoples.  Moreover,  unless  the  pen- 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        141 

sion  laws  are  changed,  the  posterity  of  the 
men  that  fought  for  the  southern  nations  will 
continue  to  pay  pensions  during  the  next  fifty 
years  or  more. 

Has  any  victorious  people  other  than  those 
who  fought  against  the  southern  countries 
ever  so  horribly  mulitated  a  fallen  foe?  I 
contend  that  the  peoples  of  the  defeated  na- 
tions should  have  received  the  same  pension 
benefits  as  did  the  victors — from  Appomattox 
to  the  present  day.  A  new  pension  law  should 
be  enacted  without  loss  of  time,  and  that  law 
should  provide  that  the  soldiers  of  the  south- 
ern nations,  their  widows  and  their  minor 
children,  during  the  future  should  receive  the 
same  benefits  as  the  soldiers  of  the  northern 
nations,  their  widows  and  their  minor  chil- 
dren. Furthermore,  the  new  law  should  pro- 
vide that  the  soldiers  of  the  southern  nations, 
their  heirs  or  their  assigns,  should  receive  as 
much  as  the  soldiers  of  the  northern  nations, 
their  heirs  or  their  assigns,  have  received. 
Until  such  a  law  is  enacted  I  shall  advocate 
this  cause — so  long  as  I  live. 

To  think  of  the  immense  amount  of  money 
that  would  be  circulated  in  the  south  if  such 
a  law  were  enacted!  Yet,  my  friends,  such 


142        The  Sovereignty  of  the  States 

an  immense  sum  divided  among  southerners 
would  not  make  them  nearly  so  wealthy  as 
the  people  of  the  other  part  of  this  monarchy. 
Why?  The  devices  of  the  victors  by  which 
they  took  the  frugal  earnings  of  the  van- 
quished from  them  were  not  limited  to  the 
pension  outrages. 

INDEMNITY   BY    TARIFF   LAWS 

For  half  a  century  the  southerner  communi- 
ties have  been  forced  to  bear  burdens  of  taxa- 
tion under  a  tariff  more  outrageous  than  I 
have  words  to  describe.  The  industries  of  the 
south  have  been  stifled,  the  fields  of  the  south 
have  been  laid  bare, — that  northern  industries 
might  be  built  up.  The  infernal  tariffs  of 
the  last  past  fifty  years  have  really  constituted 
indirect  income  taxation  levied  upon  all  south- 
erners. Scornfully  do  the  victors  revile  us. 
They  say  that  we  of  the  south  are  poor.  But 
they  do  not  say  that  they  steal  from  us  the 
little  that  they  permit  us  to  earn — now  by 
tariff  laws,  now  by  pension  laws,  now  by  legis- 
lation so  varied  that  for  want  of  time  such 
federal  enactments  may  not  be  discussed  in 
this  oration.  Some  day  a  more  humane  tariff 
may  be  enacted.  May  Almighty  God  so  touch 


The  Sovereignty  of  the  States        143 

the  hearts  of  those  who  have  held  us  in  com- 
mercial bondage  for  more  than  a  century, 
that  they  may  have  pity  on  us,  that  their 
hearts  may  be  melted  by  the  tears  of  widows 
and  of  orphans,  and  that  they  may  cease  to 
fatten  on  our  poor  bodies!  Indeed  have  we 
suffered  at  their  hands. 

Soldiers  of  the  Eighth  Virginia  Eegiment, 
again  I  say,  the  war  is  not  over.  Here,  on 
the  battle-ground  that  is  hallowed  by  the 
ashes  of  your  fallen  comrades,  I  again  ask 
you  to  take  up  the  arms  that  you  laid  down 
at  Appomattox,  that  you  fight  without  ceas- 
ing, until  southerners  again  enjoy  the  rights 
so  long  denied  to  them.  You  and  your  chil- 
dren must  not  die  slaves. 


14  DAY  USE 

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LOAN  DEPT. 

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